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Joys Beyond the Threshold: 



A SEQUEL TO 



C^e €D4iiorrotD of %>zaty> 



BY 

LOUIS 'figuier. 

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TRANSLATED BY 



ABBY LANGDON ALGER. 








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BOSTON: 


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ROBERTS BROTHERS. 


1893. 





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Copyright, 1893, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



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OF 



****** 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page 
Introduction 1 

CHAPTER I. 
Transformations of Man after Death. — Solar Divinities .... 5 

CHAPTER II. 
Sad Conditions of Earthly Humanity 25 

CHAPTER III. 
Let us not fear Death 44 

CHAPTER IV. 

Inhabitants of the Ethereal Medium: their Attributes. — Vast De- 
velopment of their Intellect. — New Senses and New Facul- 
ties. — Celestial Hierarchies. — Angels in Christian Dogma. — 
Travels of the Soul through the Universe 60 

CHAPTER V. 

The Intelligence of Superhuman Beings belonging to the Highest 
Celestial Hierarchies, reveals to them the Essence and Abode 
of the Supreme God of the Universe 81 

CHAPTER VI. 

Joys beyond the Threshold. — We shall meet in Heaven ... 89 



IV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER Vlf. 

Page 

Joj'S beyond the Threshold (continued). — Studies and Tasks inter- 
rupted on Earth will be continued in the Abode of the Blest. 
— Vocations missed here will rind Full Scope after Death. — 
Schemes cut short will be carried out in Higher Worlds . . 108 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Idea of Justice and Truth innate in us, will be realized in our 

Second Life 127 

CHAPTER IX. 

Intercourse of Arisen Souls with the Great Men of History. — 

Dialogues with the Dead 130 

CHAPTER X. 

Comparison of our System with that of the Religions actually 
existing on the Earth : Buddhism, Brahminism, Christianity, 
Islamism, Judaism 210 

CHAPTER XT. 

Scientific Proofs in Support of the Theories set forth in this Book 292 

CHAPTER XII. 
Summary and Conclusions 314 



JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 



INTRODUCTION. 

SOME twenty years ago I published " The 
To-morrow of Death ; or, The Future Life 
according to Science," — a. work which made a 
great impression upon the philosophic world, if I 
may judge by the many editions which have been 
published, 1 by the translations which have appeared 
in English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, 
Russian, and Dutch, and by similar publications 
which it called forth from writers in various coun- 
tries. Ever since the appearance of this work, phi- 
losophers of all enlightened nations have seriously 
considered the idea developed in it; that is to say, 
the principle of the permanence of the human soul 
after death, and its reincarnation in a chain of new 
beings, whose successive links are unrolled in the 
bosom of ethereal space. 

Like every work which has made its mark in the 
history of literature or of morals, "The To-morrow 
of Death " has been greatly discussed. In France 

1 Ninth edition, 1889, 1 vol., 18mo, Hachette, publisher. 

1 



2 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

and Germany materialists and positivists accused 
it of exalting the doctrine of the immortality of the 
soul, of carrying spiritualism to its intensest degree, 
of strangely enlarging the manner of conceiving of 
divinity, and of recommending the practice of re- 
ligious worship according to the rites peculiar to 
each nation. It was criticised by L. Buchner, the 
leader of German materialists. On the other hand, 
religious writers assailed it, as attacking Catholic 
dogmas ; they gave various refutations of it in their 
reviews and journals, while one priest took up his 
pen to rewrite my work from the Roman Catholic 
standpoint. 1 

These contradictory opinions have, however, 
moved me but little. Writers are far less sensi- 
tive to criticism than is thought. Time is the only 
judge of mental productions ; and the true philoso- 
pher, indifferent to praise as to blame, pursues his 
meditations, solely occupied in perfecting his work 
by his own reflections. 

But there are other testimonies which the writer 
should heed. These are the private communications 
which lie receives from his readers. No one can 
form any idea of the number of letters which I 
have received from persons whose imagination was 
touched, in various ways, by reading " The To- 

1 "The Life after Death; or, The Future Life according to 
Christianity, Science, and above all the Splendid Discoveries of 
Modern Astronomy." By Abbe L. M. Pioger, of the diocese of 
Paris. A work honored by a brief from the Pope. 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

morrow of Death." I might make up a volume 
of this correspondence alone. 

Of all the impressions thus conveyed to me, the 
one which has struck me most forcibly is that my 
work is eminently consoling, — that it lifts up and 
comforts the hearts of people terrified by the fear 
of death, by showing them in the resurrection of 
the human being a blissful and rapid change from 
mundane destinies, by giving them a hope of again 
meeting beyond the tomb the loved ones whom they 
have lost, and thus aiding them to await with cour- 
age the critical instant of the separation of soul 
and body. 

How many disconsolate mothers, how many de- 
spairing sons, how many weeping parents, how 
many wretched victims to the fatalities of life, how 
many sick persons trembling at the phantom of ap- 
proaching death, how many unfortunates a prey to 
moral or physical pangs, have found a cure for their 
agony, and serenity of mind, from reading the " To- 
morrow of Death " ! If I am to believe some of my 
correspondents, more than one hand already armed 
for suicide has dropped on reading my book, peace 
being restored to that desperate soul. 

It is these considerations which lead me to give 
to the public, under the title of " Joys beyond the 
Threshold," the development of, and comment on 
the consoling idea resulting from the system con- 
tained in " The To-morrow of Death." I desire to 
give the practical sanction of this principle, that 



4 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

the certainty of our new birth after our earthly 
end is the best means of arming ourselves against 
all weakness in the presence of death, and that the 
help offered by science and philosophy to take that 
tremendous step bravely is far superior to that pre- 
sented by any of the existing religions. 



I 



CHAPTER I. 

Transformations of Man after Death. — Solar 
Divinities. 

ALTHOUGH this new work is merely the devel- 
opment of a chapter in the " To-morrow of 
Death," we must sum up, before beginning, the 
system of the transmigration of souls and celestial 
resurrections set forth in that book. 

Lonely wanderer on the plain or through the 
wood, have you ever noted, on the bark of trees, on 
herbaceous plants, or in furrows freshly drawn by 
the laborer's ploughshare, the grub of the oak or 
the chestnut, the cockchafer or the moth ? If so, 
you saw a black hairy being, crawling along the 
bark of the tree, hidden beneath a tuft of grass, or 
clinging to a leafy stem. If your walk again led 
you, some days later, through the wood or the 
fields, you found that the grub had disappeared, or 
rather that it had been replaced by a new being. 
To the living, active, moving insect had succeeded 
an insensible, motionless, frozen body ; a sort of 
corpse, a caput mortuum, enclosed on every side in 



6 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

a tomb, a tissue of fibrous substance. This is the 
larva, or chrysalis. " The worm is dead," you say. 
No, it is not dead ; it has undergone a natural 
change ; it has become a larva, or chrysalis ; it has 
changed its outward form, but it still lives. 

Return once more to the same spot after a 
certain space of time, and you will seek the larva 
in vain. It has vanished ; it has pierced its mem- 
branous shell ; and through the opening, still gaping, 
we might have seen a being wholly new, absolutely 
different from that which slept in its temporary 
tomb, soar forth. It is a butterfly, with variegated 
wings, which flies through space and feeds on the 
sap of trees and the pollen of flowers. The counter- 
feit corpse has become a charming inhabitant of the 
air ; it hails the light, and gluts itself with the per- 
fume of plants. This is the final result of the 
transformation of the worm into the larva, and of 
the larva into the butterfly. 

To our thinking, the human being undergoes a 
natural change of a similar kind. 

After all, what is man but a sort of grub ? Like 
the caterpillar in our woods, it is impossible for him 
to lift himself to any height above the ground, with- 
out being compelled to fall back instantly. His eyes 
have scarcely greater range than those of the 
worm ; and if we consider the immaterial world, 
man is, like the insect, surrounded hj mysteries 
which his understanding cannot penetrate. His 
pride, doubtless, leads him to believe in the omnipo- 



TRANSFORMATIONS OP MAN AFTER DEATH. 7 

tence of his intellect ; but go to the root of things, 
and you will recognize that man knows nothing 
about the first cause of the phenomena which sur- 
round him. He can, undoubtedly, calculate the 
effects and the laws of the physical actions which 
rule the universe ; but it is forbidden him to know 
the first reason of the phenomena taking place 
before his eyes. If he sees a stone fall, it is impos- 
sible, despite the genius which he grants to himself, 
for him to know why that stone falls. " It is," he 
says, " their weight which produces the fall of bodies ; 
and weight is caused by the mutual attraction of 
bodies one for another, — an attraction exerted in 
direct ratio to their masses, and in inverse ratio to 
the square of the distance. If the stone falls to the 
earth, it is because the stone is smaller than the 
earth, and because they are but a short distance apart 
from each other. If the earth revolves around the 
sun, it is because it is a million times smaller than 
the sun, and it is therefore attracted toward the 
central star." 

This is why your daughter is dumb ! 

Do you not indeed see, dear reader, that what we 
call attraction is merely a word put in place of an 
explanation ? You say that bodies attract each 
other ; but this expression is not to be taken liter- 
ally, for it is nothing but an expedient, an artifice of 
language, intended to mask our ignorance. When 
Newton likened the universal gravitation of the 
stars around the sun to weight, he did not claim to 



8 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

grasp the true cause of weight, — that is, the force 
which impels bodies one towards the other in pro- 
portion to their masses. He recommends us, on 
the contrary, to take the word weight or gravitation 
as an hypothesis only, permitting us to set forth 
phenomena more clearly, and to search out their 
laws ; and he is careful to add that we must leave 
among the secrets of Nature the cause of what he 
called attraction. 1 

This is so true that in our day certain physicists 
explain the fall of bodies and universal gravitation 
by electricity. The body most powerfully electri- 
fied, they say, attracts that which is less so; and 
this in inverse ratio to the quantity of electricity 
which each contains. The solution of the phenom- 
ena is in no wise changed. by this new hypothesis; 
and one hypothesis is as good as another, as far as 
ease of demonstration and study go. 

Before Newton, Kepler, the founder of modern 
astronomy, had a name for the hypothetical cause of 
the revolution of the planets around the sun. It was 
love which made the larger stars revolve around 

1 "What I call attraction," says Newton in the preface to his 
" Principia," " may possibly be caused by some impulse or in some 
other way unknown to us. I merely use the word ' attraction ' to 
designate the force by which bodies tend one towards the other, be 
the cause of that force what it may. For it is requisite that we 
should learn, from the phenomena of Nature, which bodies are 
mutually attracted one towards the other, and what are the laws 
and the properties of that attraction, before it is fitting for us to 
seek out the efficient cause of the attraction." 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 9 

the smaller ones ; the earth, Mars, Venus, etc., 
around the sun, and the moon around the earth. 

Thus we are left in the deepest obscurity when 
we would pierce to the real essence of the most 
important phenomena of the universe. 

Besides weight, we are surrounded by natural 
forces which give the external world power and 
activity. These forces are heat, motion, mechanical 
energy, electricity, magnetism, and light. Ask 
any physicist what a force is, he will be compelled 
to silence. In fact, we are absolutely ignorant 
what forces are. We are perfectly familiar with 
the laws which govern them, but we know nothing 
of their origin and first cause. 

Modern physics has discovered that forces may 
be transformed one into the other, as heat, devel- 
oped by the combustion of coal, by means of the 
oxygen of the air, is changed in our steam-engines 
to mechanical energy, that is to say, motion ; as 
motion and mechanical energy, when they are 
destroyed, are transformed into electricity ; and as 
electricity, when it disappears, is converted into 
light. And furthermore, taken inversely, light may 
produce heat, heat give rise to electricity, and 
electricity be changed to motion. 

Every one knows that this beautiful discovery of 
our century finds daily application in the theories of 
physics, and that, in practice, it has given us electric 
lighting and the transference, from long distances, 
of mechanical energy by means of electricity. 



10 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

But what do we learn from all this as to the 
nature of the force, either natural or transformed ? 
It is impossible for us to venture upon any explana- 
tion here ; and the wisest physicist of our academies 
knows no more about it than the humble worm of 
the fields. 

What is thought ? In what does it consist ? 
Where does it reside ? Has it a special organ ? 
How do we explain the fact that it travels from one 
end of the world to the other with incalculable 
speed ? No physiologist would be daring enough to 
answer these questions. The so-called nervous 
fluid, the vital fluid, electricity, have been invoked by 
bold theorists, who reaped nothing but derision. It 
is certain that the phenomena of thought — which is 
the cause of our actions, our activity, our will, our 
relations with the external world as well as with 
the moral world — defy all explanation, and that it 
is no more possible for man than for the insect to 
solve this insoluble mystery. 

A seed is sowed in the earth, and by the mere 
influence of heat and moisture that miracle of 
organization known as a plant is formed. An egg 
is subjected to the simple action of heat, either 
natural or artificial, and a bird appears. Who can 
ever explain such amazing marvels ? Thou hast 
imparted thy secret to none, impenetrable 
Nature ! 

A child comes into the world : place your hand 
on its heart ; it beats from the instant of its birth. 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 11 

And it goes on for twenty years, for thirty years, 
for sixty years, for a hundred years, perhaps ! 
That tireless organ throbs on, throughout that long 
space of time, without rest or repose, without a 
second's pause, under penalty of death. How do 
you explain this miracle of living mechanism, ye 
most learned humans ? Why does that heart beat ?. 
Why does it stop some day ? It is as impossible 
for you to find out the reason, you physiologist 
emeritus, as it is for the poor caterpillar, who feels 
his heart palpitate even as do you. 

Ask a botanist how and why a tree grows in 
height. He will answer you, " I do not know." 
Ask him why the tree only grows up to a certain 
limit, and why it does not go on growing indefi- 
nitely, but stops, on the contrary, at a height which 
is the same for all species of the same genus. He 
will again say, "I do not know." No theory of 
vegetable physiology can explain the mode of in- 
crease in height of trees, stopping at a level which 
is always the same. This is one of Nature's secrets ; 
so that in regard to one of the fundamental phe- 
nomena of organic life, since arboreal vegetation 
covers a great part of the soil of our globe, man 
knows no more than the insect that lives upon that 
vegetable sphinx. 

Let us continue, strange as it may appear, this 
parallel between man and the worm. 

We may say that man undergoes the same meta- 
morphoses as the insect of our woods and fields. 



12' JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

When man dies, he becomes, like the worm 
which gives birth to the larva, a senseless, cold, and 
motionless being. His material elements are slowly 
dissociated, and are lost in the air, the earth, or the 
water in the shape of solid, liquid, and gaseous pro- 
ducts. But while his material elements are dis- 
solved, the soul, which is immaterial, escapes from 
that body deprived of life ; and like the larva which, 
giving over to putrid fermentation a part of its sub- 
stance, the remnant of its former apparel, is itself 
changed into an airy butterfly, the human corpse sets 
free the immaterial and indestructible soul, which is 
to animate and compose the new being, — which we 
called in " The To-morrow of Death " the superhuman 
being, and which the Christian religion has baptized 
by the name of angel. As the butterfly which, 
overcoming the resistance of its temporary tomb, 
soars joyous and free through the fields of air, so 
the superhuman being soars through infinite space. 

To our thinking, then, man is a sort of cater- 
pillar ; a corpse is the chrysalis of the human 
worm ; and the butterfly set free from the corpse- 
like cocoon is the superhuman being. 

Toussenel called the dog a candidate for hu- 
manity ; wc might say that man is a candidate for 
the angelic state. 

But, you may say, we do not see, no one has ever 
seen, this new being whom you regard as man trans- 
figured, after death. 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 13 

Do you see the countless animalculse that swarm 
in every puddle ? Do you see the minute beings 
that live in such vast numbers in the matter 
resulting from the decomposition of bread, milk, 
vinegar, flour, paste, etc. ? To-day your eye 
equipped with a microscope beholds them ; but the 
microscope is a recent invention, — it is but two 
centuries old. If Leuwenhoek had not created the 
composite microscope in the seventeenth century, 
you would still be ignorant of the fact that the 
water of rivers and pools, and all organic sub- 
stances in a state of decomposition, contain bil- 
lions of animalculae. Their existence would be 
hidden from us, if we were reduced to the mere 
evidence of our senses. 

The air is full of floating particles, invisible 
under ordinary conditions. Yet they exist ; for if 
you admit a sunbeam into a dark room through a 
hole cut in an outside shutter, you will at once 
see these foreign bodies appear and move about. If 
you shut out the ray of light, the particles dis- 
appear, to reappear if you restore the outside light. 

Did you ever see microbes, or virus ? They can 
be seen with a microscope, you may answer. But 
if the composite microscope did not exist, how 
could you assert their existence ? And had not a 
man of genius, Pasteur, the honor of his age, taught 
you their destination in the living economy, would 
you have guessed the part played by these tiny 
creatures in the production of contagious diseases ? 



14 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

The discovery of microbes has revolutionized con- 
temporary surgery. It has permitted us to save 
the lives of thousands of wounded, by means of 
what are called antiseptic dressings, and to attempt 
with success the most marvellous surgical opera- 
tions. It has thus prolonged human life. Medicine, 
in its turn, has profited by this fresh conquest of 
science ; and the most dreaded, the most frightful 
of contagious diseases, hydrophobia, thanks to Pas- 
teur, has found a sure cure. You never saw these 
microbes, the cause of so many of the ills to which 
flesh is heir ; and yet you believe in their exist- 
ence, since you have recourse, for the treatment of 
your ailments, to the modes of healing and treat- 
ment based upon microbiology. 

Did you ever see the air ? No ; for it is colorless. 
Yet you admit its existence, not because you have 
seen it, but because you have felt its effects. The 
winds, the tempestuous motions of the ethereal 
medium wherein you are plunged, the obstacles 
overthrown by its violence, the sails of ships 
swollen and borne along by its breath, suffice to 
prove to you that air exists ; but if you lived in an 
absolutely calm medium, you could have no suspi- 
cion of its reality. 

There are stars so lost in the depths of the sky 
that no human eye has ever been able to see them. 
Yet their existence is certain ; for photography re- 
veals to you that which your eyes, even aided by 
optical instruments, are incapable of beholding. 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 15 

This is made startlingly apparent in the composi- 
tion of the chart of the heavens, which, at the sugges- 
tion of the Director of the Paris Observatory, is 
now occupying the thoughts of the astronomers of 
both worlds. Every instant, photographic machines 
reveal stars which the astronomer's glass has never 
pointed out, and which take their places in new 
stellar catalogues. 

We may add, taking another point of view, that 
our eyes are not such faithful witnesses as we may 
think. They sometimes lead us to see the very 
opposite of the truth. 

Is it not true that the sun is motionless and that 
the earth revolves ? Now, what do our eyes tell us ? 
Exactly the opposite ; for they show us the sun in 
motion, making the circuit of the sky, and the earth 
motionless. This error has even passed into our 
speech ; for we say that the sun rises, that it is up, 
that it is setting, which is absolutely false ; for it is 
the earth that revolves, and the sun does not budge, 
whatever may be the testimony of our eyes. 

When we gaze at the heavens, they appear to 
us like a blue vault, stretching its graceful curves 
from one edge of the horizon to the other, and the 
earth seems to us a flat surface, bounded by that 
vault. The truth is just the contrary. The earth 
is round, and the sky is not in the least like a vault 
or a half sphere. 

When a stick is plunged into the water, it looks 
to us as if it were broken. That is the effect of re- 
fraction, you say. 



16 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" Reason straightens the stick which the water bends," 

says the poet. 

This is all very well ; but it is none the less true 
that under certain physical conditions your eye 
leads you to look upon an object which is straight 
as if it were bent. 

If you stand at the head of a long avenue of trees 
and look straight before you, five hundred paces 
away the trees seem to you to meet ; and yet the 
width of the avenue is everywhere the same. That 
is due to perspective, you say. To be sure ; but here, 
again, your eyes give you an idea which is contrary 
to reality. 

Thus your eyes are not irreproachable witnesses, 
which can be invoked with perfect assurance. 

Therefore, friendly reader, do not conclude that 
an object does not exist merely because it is not 
visible to you ; and do not declare that the super- 
human being sprung from man cannot exist merely 
because you never saw it issue from the tomb. Sup- 
pose it should escape from the human corpse in the 
form of a colorless and translucid substance, like 
air, you could not see it. 

Whither goes this new being set free from the 
human caput mortuum ? What is its residence ? 
I felt empowered to advance, in " The To-morrow 
of Death," that its habitat, as naturalists say, is the 
space which divides the planets from the stars ; that 
is to say, the ethereal medium. 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 17 

All the natural media — earth, air, water — being 
peopled with inhabitants, we cannot admit that the 
vast space which stretches from one star to another 
can be void of animate beings. In this space, to 
our thinking, is passed the existence of the higher 
beings sprung from humanity. There the cycle of 
their transformations is accomplished ; that is, their 
successive deaths, followed by as many new births, 
with the continual improvements which refine their 
qualities more and more, and lead them to an 
increasing state of intellectual power and moral 
purity, until they have at last attained the height of 
perfection which permits them to enter the central 
star of our world, where they form a part of the 
solar divinity. 

But beings coming from the earth are not the 
only ones, in our opinion, to inhabit the ethereal 
plains. We have largely abandoned the idea, 
antique and superannuated to-day, that the earth is 
the centre of the universe, or rather the entire 
universe itself. We now know that the earth is 
but one member of the immense family of stars ; 
that it is only a simple planet gravitating around 
the sun, in harmony with its sisters, the planets 
Venus, Mars, Mercury, etc. 

The earth being inhabited, the planets which 
form a part of the same celestial procession must 
be peopled with human beings similar to ourselves. 

The idea of the inhabitability of the planets is 
very ancient. Its origin may be traced back as far 

2 



18 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

as Plutarch ; but dating from the fifteenth century, 
this idea arose in many minds. Giordano Bruno, 
one of the first partisans of the idea of the rotation 
of the earth, was the first to utter this opinion, in his 
book " The Universe and the Worlds ; " and let us 
note, in passing, that his philosophic boldness cost 
him dear, for he was burned at Rome, Feb. 1, 1600, 
by order of the Inquisition. The illustrious Kepler, 
among other sublime flights of his imagination, 
foresaw the aspect of the inhabited worlds, in his 
" Astronomic Dream." Cyrano, of Bergerac, in 
his " Travels in the Moon, in the States and Empires 
of the Sun," gave free vent to well-known eccentri- 
cities. Kircher, the Jesuit scholar, set forth the 
same ideas in his " Ecstatic Journey." Fonte- 
nelle wrote that masterpiece of mind and imagina- 
tion entitled u The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds," 
and forever impressed this theory upon all minds, 
by the double privilege of reason and grace. 

From Fontenelle on, the cause was won ; and 
throughout the eighteenth century appeared count- 
less writings to defend the theory of the inhab- 
itability of the planets. 

In our own day, Camille Flammarion has dis- 
pla^ved true genius in setting forth the same idea. 
In his " Imaginary Worlds and Real Worlds," and 
later on, in his " Kingdoms of the Sky," he has con- 
sidered the question in all its aspects. We may 
say that he has exhausted it, and established 
beyond a doubt the fact that the planets which 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 19 

form part of the solar procession are inhabited, 
like the earth, by beings similar to terrestrial man. 

We must only add, to render the fact generally 
acceptable, that the human beings living in each 
planet of our solar system must differ, in structure 
and intellectual faculties, from the inhabitants of 
the earth. The temperature varies in each planet 
according to the distance from the sun. Grav- 
ity also varies according to the same distance ; and 
as the structure of organic bodies depends upon 
the atmospheric and climatic conditions of the 
external medium, the weight, size, density of tissues, 
duration of life, quantity of air breathed, kind of 
nourishment, and intellectual force cannot be the 
same for the inhabitant of burning Venus as for 
the inhabitant of the earth or of cold Jupiter. 

With this reserve, we must declare, with Flam- 
marion, that the planets Venus, Mercury, Mars, 
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, etc., afford shelter to 
human beings similar to ourselves. 

We believe that the various planetary humanities 
are subject to the same order of organic changes 
which we imagine peculiar to man ; that is to say, 
they pass successively through the states of human 
being on their respective planet, and superhuman 
being by soaring after death into ethereal space. 

Universal ether, therefore, is the general domain 
whither tend not only risen earthlings, but also 
the 'dwellers in Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Neptune, etc. 
It is, in our opinion, this general battalion of 



20 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

superior beings that inhabits planetary ether, and 
constitutes the population, which we may, without 
any play on words, call floating, since it flies like 
the bird through the ethereal medium. 

To our thinking, therefore, all the inhabitants of 
ether traverse together the phases of their succes- 
sive metamorphoses and progressions, which end 
with their final entry into the sun. 

In brief, we admit that interplanetary space is 
occupied by beings superior in intelligence and 
faculties to the inhabitants of the earth. We can 
assert the contrary only by asserting that man 
ranks first after God, — which is impossible. The 
space dividing the worlds one from the other cannot 
be empty, for there can be no void in the universe ; 
and if this space be occupied, by what can it be, if 
not by creatures intermediary between man and 
divinity? Were it otherwise, the plan of the 
universe would be imperfect. Its inferior part 
would be peopled by an endless number of living- 
creatures, while its superior part would be but a 
vast desert, and beyond that, without any interme- 
diary, would shine, above and in the depths of space, 
the person of God. 

The ether which divides the planets one from the 
other must therefore be occupied ; and, to our 
thinking, it serves as the dwelling of higher beings 
proceeding from earthly humanity, conjoined with 
other planetary humanities. 



TRANSFORMATIONS OP MAN AFTER DEATH. 21 

But, you may say, there are other suns than that 
which warms and lights our globe. The sun, with 
the planets Mercury, Venus, the earth, Mars, 
Jupiter, etc., make up our astronomic system; but 
there exist other stars, which, surrounded by their 
planets, form other solar systems, separated from 
us by distances so great that we can scarce 
imagine them, but of which we may gain some 
idea when we learn that it takes their light endless 
years to reach us. These distant suns are what we 
call fixed stars. 

If these fixed stars or distant suns are stars sur- 
rounded by their train of planets, those planets, 
reasoning by analogy, must be inhabited, as the 
planets of our solar system are. Around fixed 
stars, like Cassiopeia, Sirius, Arcturus, etc., revolve 
planets, too far distant for us to see them, but none 
the less existing. There must be inhabitants in the 
planets belonging to distant suns ; and if these 
planets have their inhabitants, like the earth, like 
Mars, Yenus, etc., those inhabitants must, in our 
opinion, undergo the same organic evolutions which 
are peculiar to earthly humanity, — that is to say, 
they die upon their planetary earth, are born again, 
and are diffused through universal ether in the 
form of superhuman beings. Then, just as super- 
human beings, perfected in aptitudes and moral 
faculties, are at last reunited in oar sun, so too the 
superhuman beings of other solar systems must end 
in their particular sun, and enter into the substance 



22 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

of their particular star, to compose portions of the 
solar divinity. 

There would thus be as many divinities as fixed 
stars in the sky. 

And as, according to astronomical catalogues, 
a thousand million fixed stars are known, the 
number of solar gods would be the same. 

This strangely enlarges our idea of God ! 

Fontenelle proved the " Plurality of Inhabited 
Worlds ; " modern science tends to make us accept 
the " plurality of gods." 

Greek and Roman antiquity peopled Olympus 
with gods and demigods ; our system extends the 
plurality of gods to the entire universe, and some- 
what upsets the notions which have hitherto pre- 
vailed in regard to the destiny of the stars which 
spangle the firmament. The fixed stars which 
shine through the serenity of night, shedding their 
mild, soft lustre upon our globe, are not a mere 
decorative spectacle, designed to delight our eyes 
and to plunge our soul in vague reveries ; they are 
divine lights, which reveal to us the existence, in 
the immensity of the heavens, of an innumerable 
quantity of higher powers, watching over the im- 
mutable order of Nature, as well as the perfecting 
of immortal souls issuing from various planetary 
humanities. 

To the scourge of atheism, which now threatens 
to destroy the foundations of social order, we 
oppose astronomic polytheism, its direct antagonist. 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 23 

We must, however, follow out our theories to the 
end. 

We have supposed that the sun, as well as other 
stars of the same order, is fixed. The truth is that 
they move, and that they move with a speed ten 
times, twenty times, a hundred times greater than 
the speed of a cannon-ball shot from a gun. If 
they seem to us motionless, it is merely because the 
distance which divides them from our solar system 
is so vast that their motion is imperceptible to us, 
and that long calculations and multiplex observa- 
tions were required to ascertain the fact. And yet 
this motion is a certainty, and we know that all 
the fixed stars, all distant suns, revolve, like our 
sun, around a central point, situated so deep in 
space that we can only conceive of it in imagination. 

In our system it is at this central point that the 
supreme god, Jehovah, may be found, hidden, to use 
Pliny's expression, " in the majesty of worlds," — 
latet in majestate naturce. 

Did the English poet Young foresee this astro- 
nomic theogony, when lie wrote in his " Night 
Thoughts," — 

" Not the God alone : 
I see his ministers ; I see, diffus'd 
In radiant orders, essences sublime, 
Of various offices, of various plume, 
In heavenly liveries, distinctly clad, 
Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold, 
Or all commix'd." 



24 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" Think'st thou my scheme, Lorenzo, spreads too wide ? 
Is this extravagant ? — No ; this is just ; 
Just in conjecture, though 't were false in fact. 
If 't is an error, 't is an error sprung 
From noble root, high thought of the Most High. 
But wherefore error ? Who can prove it such 1 " 

Thus we may sum up the cosmogonic theosophy 
developed in " The To-morrow of Death." 

With this statement we will take up the chief 
subject of our new work ; that is, in conformity 
with its title, we will give a sketch of the various 
joys awaiting man in the new existence opening for 
him beyond the tomb. 



CHAPTER II. 

Sad Conditions of Earthly Humanity. 

AN Arab proverb says : " It is better to sit than 
to stand ; it is better to lie down than to sit ; 
it is better to die than to live." 

Homer regarded man as the most miserable 
being in the world. 

The Greek poet Theognis (570 B. c.) in his 
" Elegiac Sentences," composed after misfortunes 
overtook Megara, his country, and stamped with the 
impress of his sorrows, says : " The happiest fate 
for mortals is never to have seen the light of day ; 
and if they be forced to see it, to cross the portals 
of death as soon as may be." 

So too the Thracians hailed new-born babes with 
groans of despair, while they celebrated funeral rites 
with shouts of enthusiasm and joy. 

" Since you seem not to know how we mourn the 
dead," says Lucian, "I will tell you: — 

" ' Ah ! poor child, nevermore shalt thou thirst ; 
nevermore shalt thou be hungry or cold. Thou art 
forever lost to me. Thou art forever safe from fever, 



2b JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

tyrants, and foes ; nevermore shalt thou be tormented 
by the pangs of love ; nevermore shall pleasure sap thy 
strength ; never shalt thou be an old man despised by 
all.' " * 

To love, to regret the earth, human existence 
should abound in satisfactions and joys. Now, on 
the contrary, life upon our globe is but a long suc- 
cession of physical sufferings and moral agonies. 
The inequalities of the seasons or the inclemencies 
of climates, resulting from the peculiar inclination 
of the earth on its axis, expose us to diseases which 
we can only ward off or combat by dint of ingenuity 
and care, by wonders of art and industry. Now 
blistered by a burning sky, now subject to icy cold, 
man, of whatever age and condition, is attacked by 
physical infirmities due as much to outward influ- 
ences as to causes of organic disorder inherent in 
himself ; and the constant dread of suffering and 
sickness makes his life almost perpetually painful. 

But it is on the moral side particularly that the 
majority of mankind is miserable. In modern so- 
ciety an honest, simple-hearted man exhausts his 
strength in superfluous efforts, and takes infinite 
pains to obtain the smallest results ; while the vio- 
lent, bold, and unscrupulous attain everything. 

And what a contrast there is in the destinies 
of men ! Here flaunt the happy and the favored, — 
happy and favored because they are bold and un- 
scrupulous, or because they inherit from a wealthy 

1 Lucian " On Mourning." 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 27 

parent. There cower the famished, the dejected, 
the dying, — famished, dejected, dying because they 
choose to be honest and simple, or because they 
belong to a poor family. The father without work, 
the wife ill, the children pale, ragged, and crying 
for bread, see from the window of their wretched 
garret the millionaire deaf to the sufferings of 
others and solely occupied in gratifying his ca- 
prices. For the one, the pallet on the damp ground, 
hunger his constant companion ; for the other, pal- 
aces, luxurious apartments, adorned with all the 
most precious things that art and industry can offer, 
and gold lavished with open hands for idle whims. 
For the one, mean array, a humble, sad, and sub- 
missive attitude ; for the other, a haughty mien, 
costly horses, rich equipages, and grand hunting- 
parties amid forests whose maintenance would suf- 
fice to feed the inhabitants of an entire town. 

Hear this story : it happened but yesterday. 

It was early in the month of June, 1892. Paris 
was in all its glory ; luxury and pleasure on every 
hand. The King of Sweden visited the capital, 
which delighted in dazzling its royal guest by the 
splendor of its feasts. The first performance of 
" Salambo " was given at the Opera, with Madame 
Caron ; and at the Theatre Frangais, "Athalie," with 
Mounet-Sully. The double exhibition of painting 
and sculpture at the Champ de Mars and the 
Champs Elysees attracted lovers of art. As it was 
the eve of the great races, the grand prix de Paris, 



28 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

rich equipages displayed their brilliant trappings 
in advance, their reins glittering with flashes of 
steel, and rosettes of ribbon at the horses' heads. 
The flower festival drew a throng of fashionable 
ladies, in their most ravishing toilets, to the ave- 
nues of the Bois de Boulogne. Their carriages, 
opened wide, were nests of flowers ; the wheels, the 
seats, the horses were hidden beneath perfumed 
wreaths, and from one carriage to another were 
thrown nosegays, every one of which cost a louis. 
The earth was strewed with blossoms, which were 
trodden underfoot by the horses and the crowd. 
All was joy and rapture in that throng of happy 
idlers, drinking in long draughts of the pleasures 
of high life. 

Meantime at the top of a poor house in the Rue 
Monge, a young sculptor — a pupil of the Ecole des 
Beaux Arts, named Peyre — lay dying in his bare 
room. 

His province had sent him to Paris to continue 
his studies in sculpture at the School of Fine 
Arts. But his scanty allowance was exhausted 
soon after his arrival ; and while he waited for the 
next month's instalment, lie was daily forced to re- 
duce his portion of food. Knowing no one and too 
proud to ask help, the poor young man saw his 
strength ebb day by day for want of nourishment, 
and the moment came when he was too weak to 
leave his bed. 

The porter, surprised that he did not see his ten- 



SAD CONDITIONS OP EARTHLY HUMANITY. 29 

ant going in and out for several days, went to his 
room. The door was open ; he entered. 

The young man was dead. 

The police commissioner was summoned, and 
came with a doctor, whose office it was to certify 
to the death. 

" What was the cause of his death ? " asked the 
commissioner. 

The doctor tore a slip of paper from his note- 
book, wrote three words on it, and handed it to his 
companion, who read, — 

" Died of hunger." 

The doctor readily recognized that death was 
caused by starvation, from the emaciation of the 
victim, and the very evident contraction in the 
region of the stomach. 

That same evening, in the Faubourg St. Ger- 
main, the Chaussee d'Antin, and in the Quartier de 
l'Etoile, there were splendid balls, where the most 
fashionable ladies displayed their freshest gowns, 
while on their naked bosoms glittered diamonds 
and jewels worth millions. 

A single stone from the necklace which adorned 
your fair shoulders, Countess, would have prevented 
the poor sculptor from dying of hunger in his 
wretched garret ! 

Peyre was but seventeen years old. That slen- 
der body, so wasted, so bloodless, — that childish 
body, which was borne to the grave next day, per- 
haps contained the soul of an artist. His pride. 



30 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

which forbade him to sue for aid, leads us to think 
so. If that noble heart had continued to beat, if it 
had not been silenced by the fierce grasp of hunger, 
who knows if this pupil of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, 
who was allowed to die on a pallet, alone, without 
a relation, without a friend, might not have become 
a Michael Angelo, or less great, — a Houdon or a 
Carpeaux ? 

Not to confine ourselves, however, to individual 
cases, let us pass in review the conditions of men 
in different parts of the world. 

What sad pictures meet the eye of the philoso- 
pher who studies European society in our day ! 
Entire nations bowed beneath the hand of a despot, 
by virtue of the adage, " Might makes right," or 
in obedience to century-old traditions ; generous 
people given over to interminable slavery, and the 
oppressor laughing at the tortures of the oppressed ; 
war periodically letting loose its furies, and car- 
rying devastation and death to country and town, 
harvesting in an instant thousands of existences, 
sowing mourning and funeral rites, leaving widows 
and orphans, making people Avho know not even 
the cause of these murderous conflicts the victims 
of the ambition and caprice of sovereigns. 

Individual misfortunes are added to public ca- 
lamities. What do we see in many European fam- 
ilies ? Young girls worn out by suffering and toil, 
and unable even to earn their daily bread ; youths 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 31 

and grown men forced to submit to the will of a 
capricious master ; children given over from their 
birth to vice and corruption, and to whom evil is sec- 
ond nature ; the public mind corrupted by licentious 
literature, which delights in setting forth all that is 
.low, discouraging, and debasing in human nature, in 
place of great virtues, noble examples, and consol- 
ing truths. 

The fate of workers in Europe to-day is the most 
miserable imaginable, whether we take them from 
the rural districts or the cities. 

Every one knows the striking sketch which La 
Bruyere drew of the French peasant in the time of 
Louis XIV. : — 

" We see certain wild beasts, male and female, scat- 
tered through country regions, black, livid, and burned 
by the sun, bowed to the soil which they dig and on 
which they labor with stubborn persistence. The}' have 
articulate speech, and when the}' rise to their feet they 
reveal a human face. And, indeed, they are men. 
They retire at night to dens, where the}' live on black 
bread, water, and roots. They save other men the trouble 
of sowing, ploughing, and reaping to live, and hence do 
not deserve to lack the bread which they have sowed." 

Has this picture changed much since La Bruyere's 
day ? Doubtless the French peasant is better fed, 
better lodged, and better dressed than he was in the 
time of Louis XIY. ; but his wages are absurd. 
For forty or forty-five cents a day, from sunrise to 
sunset, in rain or frost or beneath the heat of a 



32 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

burning sun, he digs or ploughs the earth, he weeds, 
harrows, or perforins the exhausting tasks of the 
harvest. The peasant class, which forms more 
than a third of the whole French population, is in 
a profoundly melancholy state of intellectual infe- 
riority in consequence of the necessity under which 
it lies of laboring from morning till night, with no 
rest save on Sunday. 

Upon ships, fishing-smacks, and coasting-vessels 
the sailor is exposed to incessant dangers, the great- 
ness and frequency of which we do not fully real- 
ize. But spend some time at any seaport, and you 
will learn to how many accidents the toilers of the 
sea fall victims. Question the annual reports of 
the French office whose duty it is to point out the 
number and importance of shipwrecks among all 
seafaring nations, and you will be amazed at the 
quantity of human lives which the gulfs of ocean 
swallow up every year. Question the families of 
sailors on our shores, and you will learn with pain 
how many unhappy fishers set forth from port never 
to return. And in return for the roughest work, 
upon icy waters beneath the howl of the tempest 
or the gale, these wretched sailors scarcely earn the 
price of a scanty livelihood. 

The same may be said of the toiler in great cities 
and in factories scattered in various centres. Forced 
to perform the most fatiguing tasks, either in the 
vitiated atmosphere of a workroom or in the open 
air, now under the blazing sun, now beneath the 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 33 

wintry blast, the workman is exposed to everything 
likely to produce disease, if he would ward off mis- 
ery from himself, his children, and his wife. 

In my youth, in the pursuit of my scientific 
studies, I went to the bottom of a coal-pit, a thou- 
sand feet below the surface of the earth, and I shall 
never forget the sad spectacle presented by the 
miners at work with their picks, often in the most 
painful positions possible, lying on their backs to 
detach the coal from the course overhead, com- 
pelled to crawl on all fours in order to pass from 
one low passage-way to another lower still, which 
they were just beginning to work ; their faces and 
hands blackened by coal-dust; scarcely able to 
breathe, where there was little ventilation, the 
current of air striking against a blank wall in the 
gallery ; or elsewhere, on the contrary, exposed to 
inflammation of the lungs when, streaming with 
perspiration, they receive the furious gusts of a 
neighboring blast-engine full in the face. 

And I say nothing here of the fearful dangers of 
fire-damp ; for, thank God ! all coal-mines are not 
infected with fire-damp. But in those liable to the 
escape of this fatal gas, what can be more frightful 
for the miner than to work in the bowels of the 
earth, in a narrow space, where he is well aware 
that he has no guarantee against an awful catas- 
trophe, and that he may at any moment be crushed 
against the walls of the gallery by the explosion of 
the inflammable gas ? 



34 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

The accidents which occurred in the coal-pits of 
St. Etienne in 1891 and 1892, and at Anderlues in 
Belgium, are still too recent to allow of our dwell- 
ing on this melancholy picture. I can understand 
a man's working in a coal-pit not acknowledged to 
be liable to fire-damp, if pressed by necessity ; but I 
ask myself how it is that men can be found to work 
in certain pits notoriously filled with it. 

Not to confine ourselves to agricultural laborers, 
to the toilers in factories and great towns, to sail- 
ors and miners, let us say, in general, that workers 
in the various professions do not receive sufficient 
wages in any country of Europe. Considering the 
general increase in the price of everything, French, 
English, and German workmen are not paid enough 
to meet their necessary expenses ; and as want gives 
rise to corrupt morals, it is in London, where work- 
ing-people's wages are lowest, that we find the sad- 
dest instances of human degradation. 

In the capital of England, at the approach of 
night, four or five hundred thousand people come 
forth from foul lairs and filthy dens, men and 
women of wretched aspect, to seek their horrible 
subsistence in the mire of the gutter or in the of- 
fal thrown out from kitchens. 

Side by side with the awful misery to be seen in 
the city of London, we should place in opposition 
the scandalous fortunes of certain lords who, heed- 
less of the suffering of the poor, devote their fab- 
ulous incomes solely to the purchase of luxurious 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 35 

equipages for riding, driving, and hunting, to keep- 
ing up their parks and castles, and providing for 
their splendid entertainments. One seventh of the 
population of Great Britain belongs to ninety pro- 
prietors, while the working-classes are given over 
to black misery. 

The scanty wages paid in France as well as in 
other countries to women employed in working with 
the needle, is a subject of painful surprise to the 
philanthropist. It is a well-known fact that the 
wages of women in our large cities cannot suffice 
for their material wants. The workwomen of 
Paris, Lyons, Lisle, etc., earning but fifty cents a 
day, periodically stopped by slack seasons, are 
forced to endure constant privations, if they would 
remain honest. 

How can all these workers, men or women, cul- 
tivate their minds, preserve their moral faculties, 
think of God, of their immortal soul, their future 
destiny, when they are obliged from morning till 
night to turn up the earth with their ploughshare, 
to hew granite or cut stone twelve hours a day, to 
handle the rigging or the sails of boats and ves- 
sels, to shunt cars on railways, etc., to provide for 
their daily wants ; while their wives wear them- 
selves out at needlework or at shopwork, which 
shortens their days by incessant fatigue ? 

Are you surprised after this that the claims of 
the laborer all over the earth become daily more 
urgent, and that workmen in cities and manu- 



36 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

facturing populations demand the share of happi- 
ness and ease to which they have a right ? Are 
you surprised that workmen in every land cry out 
for an eight-hour law, — which does not mean that 
they want to work only eight hours a day, hut it 
means that they demand an increase of pay ; for 
they would continue to work ten and twelve hours 
a day, with extra wages, hased on the pay for a day 
of eight hours. 

And yet it has not hitherto seemed possihle to 
satisfy the claims of the worker ; so that manu- 
facturer and citizen are reduced, in every land, to 
live in constant terror, always dreading some crisis 
or social catastrophe. 

Nor are the European middle classes much better 
off than the workers. Crushed by taxes, forced to 
submit to a steady rise in the price of food, dress, 
and rent, they are often as poor as the day-laborer, 
although they preserve an outward show of comfort. 

And on the other hand, the military servitude to 
which every man is now subject in almost every 
country of Europe interferes with his occupations 
and studies throughout the best years of his life, the 
same forced servitude continuing during his mature 
age. 

Thus the fate of the European is miserable in- 
deed. In Asia, which has a population much 
larger than that of Europe, it is no better. There 
the imperfect religions to which the people are 
given over — Buddhism, Brahminism, and Islam- 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 37 

ism — forbid all intellectual and moral progress, 
and cause them to cling to their ancient customs. 
Oriental nations, moreover, are oppressed by auto- 
cratic governments, and stripped of everything by 
corrupt officials. Others are subject to English 
rule, which makes it a law to change no jot or tittle 
of the ancient religious or political customs of the 
Oriental and other nations which have become their 
vassals. 

The Asiatic, therefore, is always poor, oppressed, 
and plunged in deep apathy, resulting from his 
acknowledged inability to accomplish anything for 
himself. 

Thus the people of the Orient place little value 
on life, which they regard as of no worth, and read- 
ily sacrifice it, whether voluntarily or by force. 
The Indian, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Persian, 
throws away his life on the most futile pretext, 
or submits without flinching to the most fearful 
torture. 

In Africa slavery, that hideous plague-spot of 
modern society, afflicts thousands of unhappy 
wretches, whose only crime is that they were born 
beneath a tropical sky and have a black skin and 
woolly hair. 

The continent of Africa lona; held aloof from 
the social movement ; but now Europeans, finding 
themselves pinched for room at home, their limited 
territory no longer sufficing to feed an exuberant 



38 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

population, covet those vast regions which they 
scarcely know, but where they hope to find the out- 
lets which they lack, or to create productive indus- 
tries whose products they may transport to other 
parts of the world. It is greatly to be feared that 
this calculation will be belied by facts, and that 
Africa with its sandy deserts and its scattered 
tribes who have a hatred for servitude of any sort, 
can never become a commercial market. Be this 
as it may, European governments, in their common 
impatience, have hastened to divide the African 
continent, in advance, into a certain number of 
shares, which they have distributed among them- 
selves without exploring them, hoping some day to 
conquer them. We may therefore expect sooner 
or later to hear of African massacres. 

We have now spoken of civilized man ; if we 
consider man in a savage state, as he still occupies 
vast portions of the inhabited earth, we shall 
find the conditions of his existence still more 
wretched. The savage people of both worlds, de- 
prived of any true religion, are, moreover, deci- 
mated by diseases of every sort which soon become 
mortal for lack of care. Without agriculture, with- 
out trade or manufactures, they are forced to seek 
their subsistence by hunting and fishing, or from the 
natural products of the country which they inhabit. 

Add to this that their native ferocity provokes 
incessant wars between tribe and tribe, whose spe- 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 39 

cial object is to reduce the vanquished to slavery ; 
for this horrid scourge still exists in spite of the 
efforts, more or less sincere, of other nations, and 
condemns a portion of the non-civilized peoples 
to the most abominable oppression to which man 
or woman can be subjected. 

Savage nations are still the victims of bloodv 
wars on the part of civilized peoples. When the 
Spanish found a fresh field on the American conti- 
nent for their martial and commercial activity, they 
began by exterminating the native races. Pizarro, 
Cortez, and their lieutenants were pitiless slaugh- 
terers. By order of the kings of Spain, who hoped 
to find in those virgin lands inexhaustible mines of 
gold, silver, and precious stones, they gave these 
new domains over to fire and the sword. The people 
who had until then lived quietly and happily in the 
empire of the Incas, in Mexico, Peru, or Chili, 
were butchered by wholesale. 

Later on, the English followed the example of 
the Spanish conquerors in North America. They 
rid the American forests of their peaceful inhabi- 
tants with gun-shots ; and it was by this barba- 
rous method that they substituted the Anglo-Saxon 
for the native races. The few savage tribes still 
existing in certain regions of the United States and 
Brazil are even now the object of the same homi- 
cidal wars ; and the time is not far distant when 
not a single Indian will remain in the New World. 

Thus, in whatever direction we look throughout 



40 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

the inhabited world, we see man, civilized or sav- 
age, given over to the saddest fate. 

And it is to endure these sufferings, moral or 
physical, that we are on the earth ! It is to be 
the meek servants of countless masters ; to stretch 
forth a hand into which nothing falls ; to abdicate 
personal dignity ; to wear away by the friction of 
life the illusions and hopes cherished in youthful 
days ; to bow beneath the unending labor of an un- 
grateful profession, which exhausts our powers and 
scarce suffices to keep us alive ; to have children 
whom we adore and who are torn from us by death, 
leaving an incurable wound in our hearts ; it is, 
finally, to grow old without shelter and without 
food, that we are here below ! Ah ! to how hard 
a trial Providence subjects us in ordering us to so- 
journ thus on earth ! 

" This world is a vale of misery," says Vol- 
taire. And Chateaubriand writes : " In our vale 
of tears." Indeed, what smallest of our joys is 
not expiated by our tears ? Love and paternity 
are the greatest and perhaps the only sources of 
human happiness ; but how many trials and pangs 
must they not endure ? Love, even the purest, 
most honest, most completely shared, is poisoned 
by constant and mutual suspicions, by vague alarms, 
by the pursuit on both sides of an ideal forever 
dreamed and never found. 

" The joys of love in a moment are past, 
The sorrows of love a lifetime last, 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 41 

as the enchanting song by J. Martini says, — the 
song which we all sang in our youth. 

As for paternity, the most enviable of our privi- 
leges, since it gives us the satisfaction of seeing 
ourselves live again in our children, by how many 
torments is it not purchased ? Childhood is a long 
succession of diseases which agonize the parent 
and keep him in continual terror. When my little 
son was ill or in pain, I felt an actual physical pang, 
my very heart seemed to be wrung ; and when I 
lost him, at the age of fifteen and a half, in all the 
flower of his intellect, strength, and apparent health, 
it was like the rending, the giving way of my entire 
being. It is twenty-five years since he left me, and 
even now in my lonely nights I wake, my eyes wet 
with tears, crying out, " My poor child ! my poor 
child ! " 

On reaching manhood, our sons are taken from 
us by a profession or by military service, and we 
become as it were strangers to them. If we have 
a daughter, a husband soon leads her to forget her 
parents, and she has no thought or interest for any 
but her new family. Why, moreover, should we 
wonder, why complain at this, since such is the law 
of Nature, which requires the husband to replace 
the father and mother, to create descendants ? 
Nature's law is obeyed ; but by their solitary hearth 
the parents silently weep at the filial ingratitude. 

Chateaubriand was therefore right when he called 
the earth " a vale of tears." 



42 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" On earth we never know entire joy. 

A price we pay for every pleasure here ; 
There is uo rapture without some alloy, 
And each delight is followed by a tear." 1 

The sole happiness which we can hope for here 
below, is not to suffer ; and we must not ask for 
more. 

Then why should we regret to leave the earth ? 
Why should we wish to prolong the brief sojourn 
which we are compelled to make ? Is it to grow 
old, sad and alone by our deserted fireside ; to see 
the companions of our labors depart before us ; to 
see our friends, our relations, all whom we have 
loved and respected, disappear in turn ? Is it still 
to endure the inclemencies of climates and sea- 
sons, — to dread in turn the winter's cold and the 
summer's heat ? Is it to bear a series of infirm- 
ities, the inevitable companions of old age ; to 
feel ourselves slowly wither away ; to see our 
powers and our intellect decline from day to day, 
thereby warning us of the imminence of our end ? 
Would you suffer yet again from love betrayed, 
friendship unappreciated, your rights trampled un- 
der foot by iniquitous judges ? Would you again 
take up in old age your schemes so often cut short 
by disloyal rivalry or by envy ? Have you not 
heard enough of those commonplaces, insincere 
speeches, and truisms about the weather, the table, 
and the chase, which are the eternal and insipid 

1 Keboul : The Angel and the Child. 



SAD CONDITIONS OF EARTHLY HUMANITY. 43 

basis of ordinary conversation ? Are you not tired 
of listening to the sullen and malignant imprecations 
that swell the breast of the proletary when, yielding 
to excess of toil or of privation, he sees flaunted be- 
fore his eyes vast riches acquired without labor by 
bold speculators or doubtful financiers ? Do not 
selfishness and indifference prevail in this world, 
and is it not, as Voltaire says, " The wise who go 
bare, and the geniuses who starve in the mire " ? 
How many virtues hold firm against the plea of in- 
terest or of passion ? What hand is extended to 
aid silent poverty or undeserved misfortune ? 

Why, then, we repeat, should we regret the earth, 
and why should we wish to prolong our sojourn on 
a planet so unevenly divided ? 






CHAPTER III. 

Let us not fear Death. 

TT is of deep purpose — that is to say, for the pre- 
•*- servation and perpetuity of the species — that 
Nature inspired the heart of man with a terror of 
death, even as she made the desire for reproduction 
from the pleasure of the senses ; but science and 
philosophy can dispel the fears which man feels at 
the mere idea of death. 

It is an error to believe that the instant of the 
separation of soul and body is accompanied by acute 
sufferings. The anatomist Bichat, in his " Re- 
searches concerning Life and Death," clearly es- 
tablishes that at the approach of our final moment 
the brain is the first organ affected, and that hence 
the dying are spared all pain. At that supreme 
moment moral terror is therefore the only impres- 
sion against which we have to contend in the dying, 
as there certainly is no physical pain. The by- 
standers and the relations suffer far more than 
those about to expire. 

The sleep which every night takes possession of 
our being steals over us without our being con- 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 45 

scious of it, and the transition from a waking to a 
sleeping state is imperceptible to us. Here we 
have a faint image of death. The dying have no 
more sense of the passage from life to death than 
the living have of the passing from waking to 
sleeping. 

It is unfortunate that painting and sculpture 
should represent death in the form of a hideous 
skeleton armed with a scythe mowing down man- 
kind, or of a spectre wrapped in the melancholy 
winding-sheet of the tomb. They should have 
shown him to us with the features of a messenger 
of joy, who comes not to destroy, but to bear us 
away to another and a happier sphere. Death should 
be pictured as a beneficent spirit, who aids us to 
cross the bounds set by nature between the earthly 
and the celestial voyage, and who introduces us to 
ethereal spheres beyond which rises the mysterious 
throne of the God of the Universe. 

Instead of adorning cemeteries, as we do, with 
dark-leaved cypress, the symbol of mourning and 
affliction, the Orientals were quite right to plant 
them with varied trees, to fill them with groves 
and flowers, — to make them smiling gardens, 
places for promenade, recreation, and pleasure. 

Lamartine (" Death of Socrates") most perfectly 
expresses the idea which we should have of death 
in the following lines : — 

" To die is not to die, my friends : it is to change. 
While he lives burdened by his body here below, 



46 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Man towards his God but languidly doth go ; 

Forced his vile wauts to feed, uo progress makes, 

Moves with a tottering step, or truth forsakes. 

But he who, verging on the end which he doth pray, 

Sees glorious glimpses of the eternal day 

Like sunset rays ascending towards the skies, 

An exile thence, in God's own arms he lies, 

And quaffing eagerly the nectar which doth rapture give, 

That day on which he dies he first begins to live." 

The Queen of England, Victoria, after the death 
of her husband, Prince Albert, as we all know, 
wrote a very eloquent book, entitled " Meditations 
upon Death and Eternity." In this work, filled 
with most profound and touching thoughts, may be 
found many pages which we would gladly quote, 
for they uphold the ideas which we developed in 
the " To-morrow of Death." We will merely cite 
what the august writer says to dispel the terrors 
with which death inspires most men. 

" The terrors with which we clothe death," saj's 
Queen Victoria, " come largely from the erroneous and 
revolting descriptions of it given to us. Thus, it is 
sometimes styled decomposition or corruption ; but we 
do not, speaking exactly, fall into either one or the other 
of these states. 

" Some say that to die is to leave the world ; but we 
never do leave the world, that being in itself impossible. 

" Others again claim that death is synonymous with 
destruction ; but we cannot be destined. No ; to die is 
to return unto our Father. Our souls merely cast off gar- 
ments which do not become them, to put on others more 
worthy of them. The shudder caused by the usual de- 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 47 

scriptions of death is due to the fact that these descrip- 
tions are largely borrowed from the state of the inanimate 
body. Eveiy false conception is justly repulsive to us. 
So soon as the reason is wounded, eveiwthing in us is 
wounded, and the imagination strives in vain to make 
that which is irrational seem becoming. The state of 
the corpse in the tomb is not our state, but simply that 
of the covering which we have stripped off. And what 
is our earthly covering if it be not the worn-out or dam- 
aged garment of the immortal spirit? "* 

And now let us hear Young, the poet of " Night 
Thoughts." Says the English writer : — 

" But were death frightful, what has age to fear 1 
If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe, 
And shelter in his hospitable gloom. 
I scarce can meet a monument but holds 
My younger ; ev'ry date cries, ' Come away ! ' 
And what recalls me 1 Look the world around, 
And tell me what. The wisest cannot tell. 
Should any born of woman give his thought 
Full range, on just dislike's unbounded field : 
Of things the vanity ; of men the flaws, — 
Flaws in the best ; the many, flaws all o'er ; 
As leopards spotted, or as Ethiops dark ; 
Vivacious ill ; good dying immature 
(How immature, Narcissa's marble tells !) 
And at his death bequeathing endless pain. 
His heart, tho' bold, would sicken at the sight, 
And spend itself in sighs for future scenes." 2 

" . . . Why cling to this rude rock, 
Barren to us of good, and sharp with ills, 
And hourly blackened with impending storms, 

1 First Meditation, — Interpretation of Eternity. 

2 Night IV. 



48 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

And infamous for wrecks of human hope, — 
Scar'd at the gloomy gulf that yawns beneath." 

"... The thought of death indulge ; 
Give it its wholesome empire ! let it reign, 
That kind chastiser of thy soul, in joy ! 

And why not think on death ? Is life the theme 
Of ev'ry thought, and wish of ev'ry hour, 
And song of ev'ry joy ? Surprising truth ! 
The beaten spaniel's fondness not so strange. 
To waive the num'rous ills that seize on life 
As their own property, their lawful prey. 
Ere man has measured half his weary stage, 
His luxuries have left him no reserve, 
No maiden relishes, unbroacht delights ; 
On cold-serv'd repetitions he subsists, 
And in the tasteless present chews the past, — 
Disgusted chews, and scarce can swallow down. 

" Live ever here, Lorenzo ? — shocking thought ! 
So shocking, they who wish disown it too; 
Disown from shame what they from folly crave. 

A truth it is few doubt, but fewer trust : 
" He sins against this life who slights the next." 
What is this life ? How few their fav'rite know ! 
Life has no value as an end, but means, — 
An end deplorable ! a means divine ! " 1 

Death, far from being a scarecrow, since we all 
must inevitably yield to it, should be regarded as a 
supreme benefactor, who comes to remove us from 
the misfortunes, deceptions, and despair peculiar to 
life, to lead us to the splendor of realms above, 
where all is happiness, power, and peace. 

Queen Victoria, in the work already quoted, thus 
expresses herself : — 

i Night III. 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 49 

" What is death ? Nothing but the separation of the 
soul from its earthl} 7 case. . What becomes of the case 
when it is cast aside? Does it vanish from God's 
creation? No ; it falls to dust and ashes, and is mingled 
with the rest of earth, whose nutritive elements formed 
it in the beginning. It does not leave creation, but 
remains there, awaiting another destin} 7 . 

" But what becomes of the soul stripped of its veil? 
Does it vanish from God's creation? Oh, no! How 
could it be possible for the nobler element to cease to 
exist when the viler is imperishable ? 

" Must we believe that it has been removed from the 
infinite multitude of created beings, because it has 
thrown off the veil through which alone it could reveal 
its presence to our senses? No. it lives; for its very 
dust, which once served to enwrap it, still exists. It 
lives ; for God creates and does not annihilate. It lives ; 
for in his sovereign wisdom, he could not repent, in any 
sort, of the high destin} T for which he gave it being. 

tk Is it, then, so painful to cast off this earthly veil? 
In truth, the natural love of life which the Creator has so 
deeply implanted within us, inspires us with fear at the 
idea of parting from our mortal form ; but the power of 
the human mind can triumph over the terrors of nature. 
How many generous men have faced death for their 
God, their country, their faith, and their friends ! 
Death had no terrors for them. How man} 7 poor, weak, 
degenerate beings, driven by despair, have voluntarily 
laid down the life which had become a burden to them ! 

"Dying men do not dissimulate, and we can judge b} r 
their features what is going on in their mind. From 
such study it would seem almost as if the soul must 

4 



50 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

experience an agreeable sensation at the moment that 
it lays aside its mortal spoil ; for it has been often 
observed that the features of persons dying of painful 
maladies, assume at the final instant an expression of 
calm serenity, while a peaceful smile quivers on the lips 
of the lifeless body, left there by the departing soul, — 
a smile which seems to sa} T , ' Ah ! what relief ! ' " 

Victor Hugo has aptly translated this idea in the 
following verses in his " Contemplations " : — 

" O death ! moment grand ! O mortuary rays ! 
Hast thou ne'er turned the sheet from dear dead face, 
While others wept and stood beside the bed, — 
Friends, brothers, children, mother Avith down-hanging head, 
Distracted, sobbing, of wild grief the prey, — 
Hast seen a smile across the dead man's features stray 1 
He groaned, he choked, he died just now ; 
And yet he smiles. Dread gulf, oh, whence and how 
Cometh that light seen on the face of death's unwilling slave 1 
What is the tomb ? Whence cometh, thinker grave, 
The awful calmness on each dead face we see ? 
It is that the secret is out, it is that the spirit is free ; 
It is that the soul — all seeing, all shining, all burning so bright — 
Laughs aloud, and the body itself takes part in its fearful 
delight."i 

Farther on, the poet reflects as follows, in the 
cemetery at Villequier, where his daughter lies 
buried : — 

AT VILLEQUIER. 

Now, my God ! I have the calmer woe ; 

Able, the while I weep, 
To see the stone where in night well I know 

She does forever sleep. 

1 Contemplations, book vi. : On the Brink of Infinity, xiii. 



\ 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 51 

Now that, made softer by these sights divine, — 
Plain, forest, valley, river, rocks, and sky, — 

Viewing myself by these vast works of thine, 
Reason returns before immensity. 

Father and Lord, in whom we must believe, 

I come, perverse no more ; 
Shreds of the heart thy glory fills, receive, 

Shattered by thee of yore. 

I come to thee, Lord, who art, I know, 

living God ! good, merciful, and kind. 
I own that you alone know what you do, 

That men are reeds that tremble in the wind. 

I say the tomb in which the dead is shut 

Opens the heavenly hall ; 
And what we here for end of all things put, 

Is the first step of all. 

Now on my knees I own, Lord august ! 

The real, the absolute belong to thee ; 
I own that it is good, I own it just, 

My heart should bleed, since such is God's decree. 

Whate'er may happen, I resist no more, 

But in thy will comply. 
The soul from loss to loss, from shore to shore, 

Rolls to eternity. 

We never see more than a single side, — 

The other plunged in night's dread mystery. 

Man feels the yoke : thou dost the causes hide, — 
Brief, useless, fleeting, all that meets his eye. 

Thou makest a perpetual solitude 

Wrap all his steps around ; 
Thou hast not seen it fit that certitude 

Or joy should here be found. 



52 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Whatever good he has fate takes away ; 

Naught can he call his own in life's quick flight, 
So that he here can make a home or say, 

" Here is my house, my field, or my delight." 

All sights he may but for a moment see, — 

Must age, unhelped, alone, 
Since things are thus ; 't is that they so must be; 

I own it, — yes, I own. 

Dark is the world ! The changeless harmony, 
O God ! of cries as well as songs is made. 

Man but a speck in dread infinity; 

Night where the good mount up, and sink the bad. 

He asserts still more clearly his belief in the res- 
urrection of the human being, the individual, in the 
following passages, which we quote, concluding 
with them these thoughts from great authors : 

" Some day, soon perhaps, the same hour which 
struck for the son will strike for the father. His turn 
will come. He will wear the look of one sleeping ; he 
will be laid between four boards ; he will be that un- 
known quantity called a dead man, and he will be carried 
to the great, gloom}* opening. There the new-comer is 
awaited by those who went before. The new-comer is 
welcome. What seems the exit is to him the entrance. 
The eye of the flesh closes, the eye of the spirit opens, 
and the invisible becomes visible, While shovelsful of 
earth fall on the dark and echoing bier, the mysterious 
soul forsakes that garment, the bod}*, and rises in light, 
from the gathering shadows. Then, for that soul those 
who have vanished reappear, and those truly living, 
whom in earthly darkness we call the dead, softly call 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 53 

to the new-comer, and bending over his dazzled face, 
wear that radiant smile worn amid the stars. Thus 
shall the laborer depart, leaving, if he has played 
his part well, some regrets behind him, and at the same 
time received with J03* in eternal day." x 

''''Everything ends under six feet of earth? No, 
everything begins. No, everything germinates. No, 
even-thing blossoms, and grows, and springs up, and 
bursts forth. 

" I believe in irnmortalit}-, — not in the immortality 
of the name, which is but smoke ; but in the enduring 
life of the individual. I believe in it, I feel m}'self 
immortal. 

" Yes, I believe in God and in another life. . . . 

" If I face death with a calm smile, it is because I 
believe in a future life. And note that I am on my 
guard against the caresses which we bestow on our 
ideas to the end that the} T may become opinions. But 
here it is an absolute conviction. I believe — I say 
more, I am sure — that we do not utterly and wholly 
die, and that our ego survives." 2 

"Yes, I believe profoundly in this better world ; it is 
far more real to me than this wretched chimera which 
we devour and which we call life. I believe in it with 
all the strength of my conviction ; and after many 
struggles, much stud}', and many trials, it is the supreme 
certainty of my reason, as it is the supreme consolation 
of my soul." 3 

1 My Sons (Mes Fils), p. 38. 

2 Victor Hugo at Home, by Gustave Eivet, pp. 245, 246. 

3 Literature and Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 291. 



64 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Therefore let us have no fear of death. What 
is laid in the tomb is not ourselves, but simply the 
material wrapping of our souls. This wrapping 
perishes in obedience to the laws of chemical de- 
composition ; but the soul, which is our true individ- 
uality, does not disappear : it goes on to pursue a 
fresh career in the skies. The body is the cloak of 
the soul ; the body is changed to dust, the soul is 
changed to light. 

Sometimes during stormy nights which cover 
the abode of the dead with darkness, light flames 
escaping from the soil flicker in the heavy air. 
Naturalists call them will-o'-the-wisps ; chemists, 
carburetted hydrogen gas ; spiritual philosophers 
and poets, as well as the common people, regard 
them as the souls of the dead rising from the 
tomb. 

We do not shudder when we see various parts of 
our bodies perish. If we cut our hair or our nails, 
or if we lose a limb by a surgical operation, we do not 
distress ourselves about those lopped-off portions of 
our personality which are left to decay. Why, 
then, dread its total destruction ? 

Our bodily substance is perpetually changing ; and 
physiologists, such as Buffon and Flourens, have 
ascertained that the human bodv is renewed in all 
its parts once in every seven years. These are so 
many bodily deaths which do not alarm us in the 
least. 

If you dread death, it is because you have at some 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 55 

time gazed on a human corpse with terror, and told 
yourself that you would some day enter the same 
state. But if your eyes had never beheld this sad 
sight, you would be free from the agonies that you 
feel at the idea of death. For, we repeat, that which 
is laid in the tomb is not you, but only your earthly 
garment ; and you have too often renewed that 
fleshly garb, without suspecting it, to dread its final 
destruction. 

When the worm, become a butterfly, leaves on 
the ground or on a branch the frail shell which 
once contained it, does it trouble itself about the 
worthless remnant which it abandons to the wind ? 

It is important, besides, fully to take in the idea 
that the instant of the separation of soul and body 
is inappreciable. Just as we pass from a waking 
to a sleeping state without any knowledge of the 
precise moment when the change is effected, so too 
we pass without knowing it and without pain from 
life to death. The sort of pleasant prostration 
which we feel when we fall asleep gives us some 
idea of the vague and happy sensation which must 
prevail at the supreme moment when the torch of 
our existence is extinguished. 

Our last moments are so far from painful that 
many persons have been able coldly to describe the 
successive symptoms proclaiming their speedy death. 
We may quote the case of Professor Kichet (of the 
Institute), who died in January, 1892, of an inflam- 
mation of the chest, and described to those around 



56 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

him with the greatest precision the successive 
phenomena which revealed the effusion of the 
lungs and the growth of the disease, and who pre- 
dicted with assured and peaceful look the instant 
when he should draw his last breath. 

Dr. Trousseau's death was most singular; for up 
I o the last he described the progressive phases of his 
disease, and ceased to give a sort of clinical lecture 
upon himself only when he ceased to live. 

Haller, the famous physiologist of the eighteenth 
century, felt his own pulse as lie lay dying, and 
said quietly : " The pulse still beats, — the pulse 
still beats, — it has ceased to beat!" and he ex- 
pired without another word, without a groan. 

Chirac, a physician of Montpellier, in the eigh- 
teenth century, fancying on his death-bed that he 
was himself called to a patient, seized his own arm, 
felt his pulse, and exclaimed : " You sent for me 
too late ! You should not have bled this man ; you 
should hare purged him ; now he is a dead man !" 
and he closed his eyes never again to open them. 

Dr. Baillarger, a member of the Academy of Medi- 
cine at Paris, who died in 1891, faded away gently 
and almost without pain. He retained complete 
possession of all his faculties up to the last mo- 
ment. A few instants before he died, having talked 
with Professor Potain, who, together with Desnos 
and Guy on, had charge of his case, he asked one of 
his daughters to read him an article from the med- 
ical dictionary upon a certain morbid symptom 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 57 

which he felt at the moment. The reading over, 
he made a brief remark about the symptom in ques- 
tion, and turned on his pillow. A few seconds later 
he was no more. 

" I feel the approach of death, and I feel it with 
joy," said Berthollet to his friend Chaptal, who was 
trying to reassure him. " Why should I fear it ? I 
have never done any evil, and in my last hour I 
have the comforting thought that the friendship 
which has united us for more than forty years, and 
of which you have given so many proofs to me and 
mine, has never been troubled for a single instant. 
It is given to few men to pay such homage to 
themselves ! That is enough for me ; I desire no 
other." 

This fine funeral oration, uttered by dying lips, 
far outweighs the words repeated by the physio- 
logist Claude Bernard in his last agony : " The 
game 's up ! " 

Here is a touching anecdote of the last moments 
of the celebrated surgeon Philip Ricord, who died 
in 1889. 

Sinking beneath an inflammation of the chest, 
Ricord woke suddenly towards midnight, half rose 
in bed, and moved his hands in cadence, as if play- 
ing on the piano. The doctors, Horteloup and Pi- 
grot, who were watching beside his bed, were greatly 
amazed, and took this gesture for an outbreak of 
delirium. Ricord, after repeating it several times 
without the power to pronounce a sound, fell back 



58 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

exhausted, the doctors being unable to divine what 
he wanted. Soon he died. 

Next day his granddaughter, a child of ten, 
reached Paris with her mother, who had hastened 
from Algiers at the first news of his illness. 
" What a pity," said the child, " I could not keep 
the promise which I made to poor grandpapa ! " 
And she told how she had learned to play on the 
piano " Mary Stuart's Farewell," by Niedermeyer, 
because her grandfather had made her and also 
Batta, the famous violinist, promise that they 
would play for him, when he came to die, this 
piece which he loved above all others. 

This was the idea which haunted Ricord's mind 
at his last hour. The family obtained permission 
to have the much desired melody played at his 
funeral. 

Death may come during a fit of hilarity. We 
are told that the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus 
died of irrepressible laughter caused by seeing a 
monkey eat figs. 

Reydellet, in the article on " Laughter " in the 
" Great Dictionary of the Medical Sciences," relates 
that a nun seized in the refectory with forced 
laughter all at once became as motionless as a 
statue. This was thought to be some new jest ; on 
approaching her, she was found to be dead. 

Set aside, therefore, all these hideous images of 
death which arise solely from the sight of a motion- 



LET US NOT FEAR DEATH. 59 

less and icy human body. Let those who surround 
the dead shed no tears ; for they may see on the 
colorless lips and in the dim eyes a vague smile at 
the delights perceived by those who have left them 
only to enter into a better world. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Inhabitants of the Ethereal Medium : their Attri- 
butes. — Vast Development of their Intellect. 
— New Senses and New Faculties. — Celestial 
Hierarchies. — Angels in Christian Dogma. — 
Travels of the Soul through the Universe. 

" \T ATURA non fecit saltus " (" Nature makes 
■I ^ no sudden leaps"), says Linnaeus, by 
which he means that in the living creation every- 
thing moves by insensible gradations. The organ- 
ism is perfected, in an ascending scale, from plants 
to animals and from animals to man. But there 
is a vast interval, in intellectual respects, between 
the animals and man : the animal is endowed, not 
with instinct, — a word meaning nothing, — but 
with a certain degree of intelligence limited by the 
imperfection of his organs and the slight develop- 
ment of his brain. Between man and God, in re- 
spect to morals, there is a yawning gulf. It is, 
therefore, impossible that there should not exist be- 
tween God and man a series of creatures forming a 
progressive chain of intellectual potencies to fill up 
this huge hiatus. 

These intermediary beings between God and 
man, whose necessity is most apparent, if Nature 



NEW SENSES AND NEW FACULTIES. 61 

is to remain true to her general plan, are what the 
Christian religion calls angels, and what we call in 
the " To-morrow of Death " superhuman beings, who 
in our opinion inhabit interplanetary space. 

Let us add that among these superhuman beings, 
regarded as a whole, there must exist consecutive 
degrees of perfection, progressive generations, in 
respect to intellect and morals. 

There is nothing to hinder our believing that 
these successive generations of superior beings in- 
habit superimposed levels of planetary ether, — 
that, dying after a longer or shorter lease of life in 
a primary region of celestial geography, they pass 
after that death to the level immediately above, 
where they assume a new form ; and thus moving 
from district to district, from one celestial station 
to another, growing ever more perfect and acquir- 
ing fresh faculties more and more exquisite, in 
proportion to their successive deaths and reincar- 
nations, they end by attaining to the supreme goal 
of their sublime journey, — that is to say, by pen- 
etrating to the central star of our world, the sun, 
where they become incorporated with the Divinity. 

Is it not rash to try to particularize the degree of 
intelligence, the new senses and special faculties, 
vested in the inhabitants of ether, and to hazard 
somewhat in regard to the physical structure of 
those same beings ? We ventured this, in treating 
of the attributes of the superhuman being, in the 



62 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" To-morrow of Death." We will now carry that 
study, or rather those conjectures, further yet. Our 
readers will pardon us for trying to lift the veil 
which hides from us mysteries which death alone 
can reveal. Our boldness is explained by the title 
and object of the present work. 

It seems to us most evident that superhuman 
beings must be, in both intellectual and moral re- 
spects, infinitely superior to man ; that they must 
be as far superior to humanity as humanity itself 
is to animals. 

The vast increase of intelligence in risen man 
results from two causes, — the perfecting of the 
senses which he possessed on earth ; and the ac- 
quisition of new senses, which will lead him to 
enrich himself with faculties other than attention, 
judgment, comparison, memory, etc. 

The acquisition of more subtle senses and new fac- 
ulties will come to us from our knowledge of other 
planets than the earth, of other prospects than 
those upon which our eyes have gazed here below. 

We know that our intellectual riches are in- 
creased by the comparisons which we draw from 
the various sights which we see. Our intelligence 
is developed in proportion as our comparisons are 
extended, multiplied, and diversified. What an ad- 
vance, therefore, must our mind make when, instead 
of confining ourselves to a knowledge of earthly 
geographical localities, of the continents, islands, 



NEW SENSES AND NEW FACULTIES. 63 

seas, and oceans of our globe, we can compare whole 
worlds one with another ; when, instead of com- 
paring the animal and vegetable species, we can 
compare the organic creations peculiar to the dif- 
ferent regions of space ? 

It cannot be doubted, indeed, that the different 
zones of ether as well as the planets of our solar 
system have each their natural products, their in- 
dividual economy, their special physical laws, and 
that there is nothing exactly the same in the va- 
rious localities of heaven or in each planet. To 
believe, in fact, that all must be exactly alike in 
the infinite extent of celestial space would be to at- 
tribute to the Creator a sterility not of his essence ; 
for fertility, in the realization of the forms of be- 
ings, is the peculiar attribute of the divine poten- 
tiality. If there be not on the earth two leaves, 
two insect wings, absolutely similar, what must 
not be the variety of types in the creatures peo- 
pling the ethereal medium ? What varying aspects, 
temperatures, atmospheric pressures, and physical 
states the numerous interplanetary regions must 
present ! Each celestial world must form an in- 
dividual system, a distinct totality of things, not 
to be found in any other point of space. 

What new forms of knowledge the superhuman 
being will gain, when he flies from planet to 
planet, or traverses the entire extent of the ethereal 
plains peopled with varied populations ! How per- 
fect will his intelligence become when he can com- 



64 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

pare each with the other the inhabitants, natural 
products, and peculiar economy of so many dif- 
ferent regions ! What a splendid cosmology will 
result from an acquaintance with this transcendent 
geography ! What light it will throw upon phys- 
ics, geometry, astronomy, and the natural sciences. 
the means for observing which are so limited on 
our globe ! If we penetrate but a slight distance 
into the domain of physics, we are stopped short 
by the imperfection of our knowledge. The super- 
human being will meet with no obstacle in the ex- 
planation of the physical action which bodies exert 
one upon the other, because he will be acquainted 
with all the phenomena and all the laws of Nature 
in the various planets composing our solar world. 
Chemistry will cease to have a secret for him, be- 
cause, instead of laboriously combining, as we do, 
the atomic formulas representing the chemical 
molecule of composite bodies, he will distinctly 
see the internal arrangement from which the in- 
terior structure of the molecule results. Instead 
of reasoning, he will see that mysterious secret 
architecture of composite substances which we 
strive to fathom by every sort of comparison and 
effort, usually in vain. The domain of astronomy 
will be singularly enlarged in its turn, since the 
inhabitant of celestial regions will have within his 
reach the stars, which our optical instruments 
find it so hard to show us, the majority of them 
actually evading our telescopes. 



NEW SENSES .AND NEW FACULTIES. 65 

It is therefore natural to conclude that new senses 
will be added to those which man possesses on 
earth, and that those already his will become 
strangely perfect ; finally and consequently, that 
new faculties will be added to those which were 
his upon earth. 

We can form some idea of the development to be 
attained by the superhuman being's faculties, by 
considering the rare examples afforded by certain 
individuals of the vast increase of memory. 

Morphy, the famous chess-player, carried on ten 
games at once, on as many boards, with his back 
turned to them ; and we have heard of several 
amateurs at the present day who can perform the 
same feat. The teacher of chess at my club played 
ten games in this fashion in May, 1892 ; to be sure, 
he lost half of them. 

Paris, in 1892, saw the calculator Jacques Inaudi 
renew the marvels of Henri Mondheux and Vito 
Mangiamelo, stupefying, astounding the public as 
well as scientists by his mnemonic power applied 
to numbers. The young Piedmontese performed 
instantaneous sums in arithmetic, addition, sub- 
traction, division, multiplication, the extraction of 
square or cube roots, etc., dealing with numbers 
composed of some twenty figures at least; and this 
without the least hesitation in a very few minutes. 
He gave almost instantly the result of compound 
interest embracing hundreds of years. He also 
recited from memory all the figures written on the 



66 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

blackboard for the sums that he had performed, 
and that without once glancing at the board. 

All these feats of memory are plainly beyond the 
scope of human ability ; and the case of Inaudi may 
be cited to show the great increase which our pow- 
ers of memory may attain after death. 

What then may not be the intellectual power of 
arisen man in celestial regions, when new senses 
and new faculties are added to its original senses, 
themselves singularly perfected ? He will be infi- 
nitely superior to earthly man in the extraordinary 
activity of his intellectual life. Endowed with more 
organs and with new faculties, he will bring them 
into play according to circumstances. He can 
handle and work at his will living or inanimate 
matter, and act upon beings inferior to him with 
more energy, precision, and rapidity than we do 
here below. He can even act upon human beings 
without their knowledge, since we ourselves act 
upon animals, who are unconscious of the influence 
that we exert over them. 

Can we form any idea of the form of the struc- 
ture of the superhuman being ? If we admit that 
the human soul set free from the perishable body 
is to take up its abode in a new body, we must 
acknowledge that the superhuman being must be 
composed of an immaterial substance, of a spirit, 
contained in a material envelope. But how slight 
must be the proportion of inorganic substances con- 
tained in that new body ! The body of the super- 



NEW SENSES AND NEW FACULTIES. 67 

human being is semi-spiritualized, and the slight 
proportion of mineral matter which it contains gives 
it the privilege of floating in planetary ether as a 
bird flies in the air. 

In addition to this, the superhuman being must 
be set free from all need of food, the absorption 
of the ethereal medium sufficing to replace those 
functions which in man constitute nutrition, res- 
piration, and the circulation of the blood. The 
earth-dweller cannot exist without abundant daily 
food, without uninterrupted respiration, without an 
incessant circulation of the blood through internal 
canals. He maintains his life only by watering 
with the sweat of his brow the earth which sup- 
ports him. It is only at the cost of excessive labor 
and fatigue that he provides for his nourishment, 
his locomotion, his clothing, and his lodging. The 
superhuman being freed from the necessity of 
providing for his nourishment, and locomotion cost- 
ing him no effort, what vast happiness must fall to 
his lot ! 

Let us not forget, moreover, that in ethereal space 
there is neither day nor night. The inhabitant of 
interplanetary regions always sees the sun, since 
he is not confined as we are to a planet whose ro- 
tation upon its axis, hiding the radiant star from 
his sight for half the space of its revolution upon 
itself, produces the succession, the alternation of 
day and night. He is perpetually bathed in light ; 
no cloud, no interposition of any star, ever coming 
to deprive him of the sight of the sun. 



68 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

In celestial space no seasons are known, — that 
is, those periodical variations of temperature and 
moisture which result from the earth's periodic 
course about the sun, and which provoke on our 
globe heat and cold according to its distance from 
the sun. Placed outside the range of all planets in 
motion, the superhuman being is exempt from the 
vicissitudes of the seasons, and is, consequently, 
sheltered from the diseases which afflict the human 
race and which result from climatic causes. 

In brief, in arisen man there will be found, in our 
opinion, the same elements as in terrestrial man ; 
only they are metamorphosed, and made worthy of 
the destiny of the higher being to whom they be- 
long. Spirit predominates in enormous proportions 
over matter. All that was destructible and ephe- 
meral in man disappears. All principles of fragil- 
ity, inferiority, and corruption are eliminated. The 
physiological functions being reduced to their ex- 
tremest simplicity, the new being has neither any 
effort to produce, nor any disease to dread. His life 
is a uniform and constant state of serenity and 
happiness. No more hate, no more jealousy, either 
between individuals or between nations. A general 
affection unites groups as well as persons. All de- 
sires, all pleasures, assume a similar character, — 
inward happiness and adoration of God. Love, 
so selfish, so restless, so tyrannical on earth, 
changes its nature and is turned to continual ad- 
miration of the Creator's works and to divine affec- 



NEW SENSES AND NEW FACULTIES. 69 

tion. Reproduction, generation, are no longer 
necessary ; the fresh legions destined to replace 
those elevated to higher levels being replaced by 
arrivals from the various planets. The multiplica- 
tion of beings takes place below ; their reunion and 
sojourn, above. 

And yet, let us clearly state, it is the same in- 
dividual, it is the same personality, that endures. 
In passing from earth to heaven, it retains its mem- 
ory, judgment, and freedom. It has merely acquired 
organic and spiritual perfection. In taking posses- 
sion of his new and blest domain, the individual 
loses nothing of the integrity of his being, and the 
remembrance of his past existence makes him appre- 
ciate yet more the joys of his present life. None 
of the imperfections of his earthly body are to be 
found in him ; none of the vices which may have 
degraded his original soul. All corruption has van- 
ished in the brilliant flame of his moral regenera- 
tion. During his earthly life his intellect was often 
depressed by disease ; the imperfections of his or- 
gans caused him sufferings which arrested his ac- 
tivity. All is now changed. If death surprised 
him in his youth, resurrection gives him the 
experience which time brings to old men ; if he 
dies full of days, the resurrection restores to him 
the vigor and energy of youth. In heaven there 
is neither old age nor youth ; all possess integral- 
ity in perfection, as well as equal power of physical 
constitution and morals. 



70 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

It is, of course, impossible to know what form the 
inhabitants of planetary space wear. We only 
know that often in earthly man the soul fashions 
the body, that a good and upright soul stamps 
upon the features of the face and the forms of the 
body a character in harmony with its qualities ; 
that a fine body is usually the dwelling of a pure 
spirit, and that a noble countenance proclaims a 
beautiful soul. It is, therefore, to be presumed 
that beauty of form, grace of feature, limpid gaze, 
charm and sweetness of physiognomy, harmonious 
proportions between the different parts of the body 
are the privilege of the happy beings whom we 
dimly perceive by a bold glance through the veil 
cast over the great mystery of the resurrection. 

Among the privileges granted to the angel of 
space, we must note the ease with which he travels 
from one part of the world to the other. If we 
ourselves can journey in thought from one end of 
the earth to the other, the superhuman being, who 
is essentially composed of spirit, must possess the 
same advantage, and be able to traverse any dis- 
tance almost instantaneously. The journeys which 
our mean human condition surrounds with so many 
obstacles are but child's play to him. He visits 
at will all points of our globe ; and he traverses not 
only the earth, but the other planets of our solar 
svstem. What treasures of knowledge he will 
glean in these excursions from one world to 
another, these bold flights from planet to planet, 



ANGELS IN CHRISTIAN DOGMA. 71 

these marvellous peregrinations in the depths of 
space which divide one star from another ! It is 
probably through these distant journeys that the 
spirit of the inhabitants of ether is made perfect, 
and that they acquire the progressive perfection of 
their intelligence, while by a succession of deaths 
and resurrections, resurrections and deaths, they 
cast aside their material elements more and more 
wholly, to end at last by becoming pure spirits ; 
for the superhuman being must become absolutely 
spiritual before his existence is finally ended, — 
that is to say, before he enters the sun, and is incor- 
porated with its substance, to constitute a part of 
the divinity. 

By admitting the existence of beings superior to 
humanity, a sort of intermediaries between man 
and God, we do but revive a dogma peculiar to 
many ancient religions and to Christianity. China, 
India, Chaldea, Persia, and Egypt were early im- 
bued with this idea. The religion of Buddha es- 
tablishes a long hierarchy of angels, or demi-gods, 
now dwelling on earth and now residing in heaven; 
and the books of Zoroaster contain numerous de- 
tails in regard to the angels recognized by the Per- 
sian religion. 

This dogma, which prevailed throughout the East, 
was introduced after their captivity in Babylon by 
the Jews, who learned it of the Chaldean Magi. 
The Bible often speaks of angels acting as messen- 



72 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

gers and agents of the divine will. In 'the New- 
Testament stories, the appearance of angels is con- 
nected with all the great facts of Jewish history. 

The prophet Isaiah tells us that God is upborne 
by a cloud of cherubim who sing his praises. An 
angel named Michael overcomes a fallen angel 
known as Asmodeus. 

The number of angels, according to the He- 
brews, is incalculable. " Thousand thousands min- 
istered unto Him," says the prophet Daniel, rt and 
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him." 

Jesus Christ, addressing the apostle Saint Peter, 
who has drawn his sword to defend him, says : 
" Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my 
Father, and he shall presently give me more than 
twelve legions of angels ? " 

In addition to the missions intrusted to the an- 
gels Gabriel and Raphael, we find in sacred history 
other angels holding back the arm of Abraham who 
is about to sacrifice his son ; predicting to Sarah 
that she is to become a mother ; consoling Hagar 
in the desert and showing her a spring, to restore 
her dying son ; struggling with Jacob to test his 
strength ; saving Lot from the destruction of 
Sodom ; succouring the Maccabees in the heat of bat- 
tle ; delivering Saint Peter from his cell ; bearing 
the prophet Habakkuk upon their wings to Daniel 
in the lions' den ; teaching Tobias the secret of the 
fish's liver, which he is to roast upon hot coals to 
cure his blind father. 



ANGELS IN CHRISTIAN DOGMA. 73 

Sacred Scripture, which speaks of the existence 
of these ethereal natures, says nothing of their es- 
sence or their attributes. It limits itself to glori- 
fying their felicity, purer than ours, and to saying 
that they are the ministers of the will of God. 
Jesus Christ says nothing of their prerogatives. 
He represents them to us merely as intermediary 
beings, much nearer than ourselves to the throne 
of the Most High, taking a tender interest in the 
happiness of humanity ; just as charitable mortals 
constitute themselves the friends and protectors of 
inferior beings. 1 

The following are the attributes of these various 
beings, according to the book of Saint Denis the 
Areopagite, entitled De coelesii hierarchia. 

The seraphim preside over love ; the cherubim 
are vowed to silence ; the thrones possess divine 
majesty ; the dominations have power over men ; 
the virtues possess the gift of working miracles ; 
the powers are opposed to demons ; the principal- 
ities watch over empires ; the archangels and the 
angels are the messengers of God. 

Each of these hierarchies inhabits a different part 
of heaven, higher in proportion as they approach 
more nearly to God. 

In the religion of Buddha, of which we shall 
have occasion to speak in the course of this volume, 
we find the same distribution of beings superior to 
humanity in different regions of the sky, superim- 

1 Matthew xviii. 10. 



74 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

posed one upon the other according as they are 
nearer to the divine essence through their merits 
and their virtues. 

In the Catholic doctrine, which here again ap- 
proaches Buddhist ideas, the angels are not abso- 
lutely perfect. They were created, no doubt, in a 
state of happiness and grace ; but they are free 
to choose between good and evil. Hence come 
good angels and bad angels, a dogma which is 
one of the fundamental points of Roman Catholic 
doctrine in regard to the angelic state. 

It was pride which brought about the decline and 
fall of certain angels, who became demons. Satan 
is the leader of these degenerate legions. 

Mysterious relations exist between good angels 
and humanity. These good angels guide and sus- 
tain men in the right path, while bad angels are 
the instigators of evil. 

An opinion which is very prevalent, although not 
an article of faith, holds that every man has his 
good angel, who is known as his guardian angel. 

The guardian angel allotted to each one of us at 
birth or baptism upholds us in moments of temp- 
tation ; he leads us to choose what is right instead 
of what is evil ; he offers our prayers to God, and 
himself prays for us. 

Another very general opinion is that each nation, 
each country, each church, each community, and 
even each star in the firmament has its special an- 
gel who watches over its preservation. In virtue 



ANGELS IN CHRISTIAN DOGMA. 75 

of this, the archangel Michael is considered the pro- 
tector of France. 

Let us hasten to say that all which relates to the 
angels is not an article of faith in the Roman Catholic 
doctrine. No ecclesiastical decision authorizes the 
accusal of heresy of those who reject them. Certain 
councils have even combated all these views in toto ; 
but they finally triumphed, however, and the fact of 
the existence of angels and of the homage which is 
due to them has become canonical. We know that 
the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Holy 
Guardian Angels on the 2d of October each year. 
Nor do we really see why angels should be shut off 
from worship when saints are admitted. There is 
a forced correlation between dogma and worship. 
It was impossible to attribute to angels a direct and 
close action on man, and to prevent the faithful 
from soliciting their aid by prayers and religious 
homage. The worship of angels and the periodic 
celebration of their feast-days were introduced into 
the Catholic rite by the force of things. 

During the Middle Ages much difficulty was felt 
as to the proper way of representing the angels of 
the various hierarchies in pictures. According to 
a Byzantine work, the " Guide to Painting," the 
thrones should be represented by a wheel of fire, 
surrounded by wings, the middle of the wings 
being sprinkled with eyes, and the whole simulating 
a throne. Several hierarchies of angels are provided 
with wings : the cherubim have two, the seraphim 



76 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

six. The dominations, virtues, and poivers should 
wear ample white robes, with gold sash and green 
stole. 

The wings and white vestments given to good 
angels by artists of the Middle Ages express their 
immaterial essence and the purity of their nature. 

The angel, as represented by mediaeval artists, 
with his regular features, long hair held in place 
by a fillet, his white robes and hieratic attitude, 
made a deep impression on the minds of religious 
persons. Thus conceived, the image of the Christian 
angel has come down to our day. 

Mediaeval theologians asked an endless number 
of questions in regard to the angelic nature. How 
far, they inquired, does the knowledge of these pure 
spirits extend ? Do they penetrate the thoughts 
of man ? Do they know the essence of God ? 
Can they foretell the future ? What is their lan- 
guage ? What is the form of their body ? What 
are their abiding-places ? 

Casuists gave very varied answers to these ques- 
tions ; but the Church has never declared herself 
upon these particular points. 

We now venture to take up, in our turn, the bold 
problems which Christian scholastics put to one 
another. We have ventured some ideas as to the 
physical and moral conditions proper to the being 
higher than humanity whose type we have conceived. 
Our rashness is not without excuse, since in striving 
to lift the veil which hides so great a secret of 



TRAVELS OF THE SOUL. 77 

Nature, we have but followed in the path traced by 
ecclesiastical authors. 

A final consideration will close this chapter. 

In spite of the perfection of astronomy, there is 
a class of stars whose origin it has never been able 
to explain ; we refer to comets. 

Not all the stars in our solar system obey the 
laws of gravitation ; that is, not all are subject to 
describe ellipses, in variable orbits, around the sun. 
There are those that are detached from our solar 
system, which deviate from it, as if to bear to 
remote globes news from our solar world. Thus 
Laplace called comets the vagabonds of space. If 
comets enter a region where there is considerable 
solar attraction, they diverge towards the sun, and 
at last plunge into its fiery heart. But if a chance 
encounter with a nearer star turns them aside from 
this road, they pass into another solar system, and 
we see them no more. 

Comets are, in brief, absolutely irregular stars, 
which are sometimes destroved in the bodv of our 
sun, sometimes depart from it, never again to re- 
appear, at least to our eyes. 

No astronomer has yet been able to explain the 
nature of comets, to estimate their size or their 
weight, or even to prove that they have any weight 
whatsoever. Some of them are seen to reappear, 
if any one is able to observe them long enough to 
trace their orbit ; but even if they reappear, they 



78 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

are changed in form, disjointed, and fragmentary. 
They often break to pieces, on meeting other stars, 
which explains their deformities. They are, gen- 
erally, furnished with a luminous train, always 
directed away from the sun, and known as their 
tail; but this train is frequently missing or dis- 
appears, without affecting their motion. 

What is the matter which constitutes comets ? 
What is the cause of their strange and variable 
forms ? The changes which they undergo during 
the period of their appearance, and which some- 
times follow one another with amazing rapidity, 
clearly denote a very peculiar physical constitution, 
but throw no light whatever on the nature of the 
matter which constitutes them. 

We know, it is true, that their nucleus is a 
physical body, but there is nothing to prove that 
the rest of the comet — the tail, for instance — is a 
body. We cannot attribute either mass or density 
to the tails of comets ; the form and motion which 
they affect are contrary to the laws of gravitation. 

Thus we know nothing of the nature of comet- 
ary substance. Scientists disagree as to the 
chemical elements composing it. " To establish 
our knowledge of these points," says M. Amedee 
Guillemin, in his work on " Comets," " one of those 
events so dreaded by timid and superstitious people 
must occur : our globe must encounter a comet in 
its journey, or rather, to make the matter more 
harmless, even taken hypothetically, we will say a 



TRAVELS OF THE SOUL. 79 

mere fragment of a comet. The penetration of the 
material of that fragment into the atmosphere, its 
fall-to the ground, permitting scientific men to 
see with their eyes and touch with their hands 
the cometary substance, would cut short all 
uncertainty." 

However, as no comet has hitherto come in 
contact with the earth, astronomers have lacked 
opportunity to become acquainted with the composi- 
tion of these vagabond stars. 

And yet their number is so considerable that it is 
surprising that none of them has dashed against 
our globe. Kepler writes : " There are as many 
comets in the sky as there are fishes in the ocean." 
And according to Amedee Guillemin, there exist 
some seventy-four thousand billions of these stars 
subject to the dominion of the sun ! 

Since science fails us, evades us, when we ask an 
explanation of the nature of comets and the part 
that they play in the universe, it is lawful for 
imagination to put in its word. Shall I, dear 
reader, venture an opinion here, connected with the 
system of interplanetary existence worked out in 
this book ? I have already suggested that the happy 
inhabitants of ether have the privilege of travelling 
through the depths of heaven, before they attain 
the final goal of their existence, — that is to say, 
before they enter the sun. Is it forbidden us to 
believe that certain comets, those which re-enter 
our solar system, are agglomerations of the souls of 



80 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

superhuman beings, who have just accomplished a 
journey through the deeps of heaven, and are com- 
pleting their voyage by hastening into the ^ery 
-furnace of the sun ? According to this hypothesis, 
comets would be the excursion trains of the popula- 
tion of ethereal space ! 

I travelled in my youth ; but it was for my 
scientific instruction. Since acquiring my novel 
ideas, I have led a sedentary life. And when my 
friends express surprise at this, I answer : " I shall 
have plenty of time for travelling after I die ; and 
I shall see countries whose existence you do not 
even suspect." This makes them laugh ; but I do 
not waste my time in explanations. 



CHAPTER Y. 

The Intelligence of Superhuman Beings belonging 
to the Highest Celestial Hierarchies reveals 
to them the Essence and Abode of the Supreme 
God of the Universe. 

HPHERE is in the human mind an immense 
■*- desire to know and to learn, which can never 
be fully satisfied on this earth, by reason of the 
inefncacy of our means of observation and compar- 
ison, and the absence of instruments giving us 
the means to pierce to the secret heart of matter. 
We cannot unravel the reason or the end and aim 
of the great natural phenomena occurring all about 
us. We must rest content with admiring them and 
profiting by them when we can. Heat, light, 
electricitjr, magnetism, are manifested on our globe 
by effects which we clearly' observe, without being 
able to estimate either their object or their cause. 
The earth is an inexhaustible field of study to the 
philosopher ; but he can only admire the pictures 
which it spreads before him, without the ability to 
explain them. 

In the air and in the bosom of the waters live 
innumerable legions of animal and vegetable species, 

6 



82 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

whose types are infinitely varied by the inexhaus- 
tible fertility of the Creator. At the bottom of the 
deepest seas, and beneath vast pressure, live animal 
species, fishes, mollusks, and Crustacea, differing 
notably from those dwelling in the upper regions 
of the selfsame waters. 

On the other hand, the invisible world, the beings 
of microscopic dimensions, which we can only ap- 
preciate by using magnifying-glasses, are quite as 
rich in animal and vegetable species ; and their 
types vary in extraordinary fashion. The popu- 
lation of the kingdom of the invisible, whether 
peculiar to normal organic liquids, or to organic 
substances in a state of decomposition, lives and is 
reproduced with a rapidity akin to the miraculous, 
and which the naturalist can never cease to admire. 
Under the eye armed with a microscope, whole 
generations of anirnalculae are born and die ; and 
yet it is impossible for us to understand the exact 
part which these infinitely little creatures play in 
the economy of Nature. 

After the infinitely little, the infinitely great. 
The innumerable stars which shine in the firma- 
ment reveal to us wonders of another order. 
Thousands of suns, surrounded by their train of 
planets and satellites, are borne along by the move- 
ment of universal gravitation. There are, as we 
have already stated, stars which we cannot see, 
because it would take their light thousands of years 
to reach us. The depths of space, therefore, are 



INTELLIGENCE OF SUPERHUMAN BEINGS. 83 

filled with stars like those which we see. And all 
these systems of stars, moving in harmony with 
unchanging laws, compose regular whirlpools, 
which become intertangled, and extend to the utter- 
most depths of the heavens. The mind pauses in 
amaze, when it strives to understand the cause of 
this vortex of motions. 

Thus the invisible world with its smallness, and 
the visible world with its immensity, exceed the 
bounds of comprehension of our intelligence. 

Well, — we have not a moment's doubt of it, — 
the superhuman being, endowed with senses and 
faculties appropriate to his sublime essence, is in a 
state to grasp the reason and cause of all these 
mysteries. He knows why the infinitely little 
exists, and why the infinitely great was created. 
He pursues the treasures of universal Nature, living 
or lifeless, into yawning gulfs where the thought of 
man could never penetrate. Raised to an incalcu- 
lable degree of comprehension, he embraces all that 
is, and knows the final causes of all the creations 
of God. 

Let us add that, higher yet than all these crea- 
tions, is that which contemplates them, admires 
and judges them : our mind, which is a no less 
amazing marvel. During our earthly life our own 
intellect is an enigma to us. We know neither 
the origin nor the mechanism of our faculties. 
We cannot explain the mode of the union of 
the soul with the bodv. We cannot tell what 



84 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

thought is, the principle of intellect ; nor what 
speech is, the means of expression and special 
relation to our species ; nor what life is, the addi- 
tion of which to soul and body composes the human 
aggregate. Embarrassed in our study of ourselves 
by paucity of time, lack of means of observation, 
and by other causes, hardly suspected, we can 
explain nothing in regard to our individuality, and 
we live in complete ignorance of our own nature. 
No doubt, after death the obstacles which hin- 
dered the study of our thinking personality will 
disappear, and we shall be in possession of the 
happiness of knowing ourselves, — that is to say, of 
knowing wherein our own thought consists. 

For after death our faculties are transformed, 
extended, multiplied. Memory ceases to be a fugi- 
tive, feeble, intermittent faculty ; it embraces all 
that ever existed. Intelligence is no longer that 
laborious effort so rarely crowned with success ; it 
is an instantaneous intuition, by which we under- 
stand everything suddenly and without fatigue. 
The will is no longer that prolonged hesitation, 
that painful deliberation, that vacillation between 
opposite decisions, moving from one extreme to 
the other ; it is a firm and prompt choice, going 
straight to the mark, without pause, without 
uncertainty, without distraction, which strikes 
and acts at once. On quitting earthly life, we 
are in possession of a personality always fully lord 
of itself, and ruling its thoughts and actions with 



INTELLIGENCE OF SUPERHUMAN BEINGS. 85 

a firm hand. True moral light guides its eon- 
science, illuminates its thought, concentrates its 
actions, as a crystal lens reunites and concentrates 
the rays of the sun upon a single point, which it 
ends by setting on fire. 

But it is not enough to know and explain the 
phenomena peculiar to earth, to astronomic worlds, 
and to ourselves. We must also strive to under- 
stand the sublime Creator of all these entities ; we 
must conceive God, that supreme potentiality, whom 
science recognizes, whom philosophy proclaims, and 
whom religion points out for the adoration of men. 

We have already stated how, in our astronomic 
theosophy, we conceive of divinity. We place it in 
the geometric centre of the universe, at that un- 
known focus towards which the orbits of all systems 
of stars converge, around which stellar worlds re- 
volve, with a slow but continuous motion. This 
general focus is placed somewhere in the depths of 
the heavens : we cannot point out the place where it 
lies, save in imagination ; but it exists, since all the 
stars, apparently fixed, revolve around His radiant 
throne. 

This unknown focus, the cause of all the move- 
ments of the universe ; that Jehovah, who beholds 
all the stars which make up the universe revolve 
about this burning mass ; that supreme God, who 
compels the secondary gods (that is, the stars) to 
march obediently past his sublime rays ; that Cre- 



86 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

ator, whose essence no human philosophy has ever 
been able to penetrate, — is probably not unknown 
to the superhuman being, when he reaches the high- 
est spiritual hierarchies of the celestial battalions. 

The spiritualized being, ready to enter into the 
substance of the sun, and already himself a portion 
of divinity, will probably be privileged to under- 
stand Jehovah and to grasp His supreme attributes. 
He will see that Jehovah is infinite in extent, since 
He is greater, in Himself alone, than all the solar 
systems combined. He will understand that He is 
infinite in duration ; that is to say, that He had no 
beginning and can have no end. He will know why 
He is infinite in perfections and in power, why 
everything emanates from Him, everything proceeds 
from Him, everything derives its life from His 
radiant bosom, everything finds its source in His 
inexhaustible and sublime fertility. 

And having once understood the essence of the 
secondary divinities and the residence of the su- 
preme divinity, the ruler and master of the uni- 
verse, the superhuman being wholly spiritualized 
will have the key to every event in the history of 
earthly humanity and planetary humanities. He 
will know why Providence permitted certain events, 
apparently inexplicable, or seemingly contrary to 
providential wisdom and goodness. He will know 
why on our earth the just man is persecuted and 
vice triumphant. What astonished us in the his- 
tory of nations or in the destiny of individuals will 



INTELLIGENCE OP SUPERHUMAN BEINGS. 87 

strike him as just, and he will admire it. What 
once distressed him will be his consolation ; what 
filled him with fear will be his joy. The magnifi- 
cent sum total of the general plan of the universe 
will appear to him clearly, and will light up for him 
the history of the past and the apparent injustices 
of human society towards its most deserving mem- 
bers. Everything will be explained in the destiny 
of nations and the fate of empires. We shall un- 
derstand the formation, the progress in power, and 
the decline of nations, in harmony with the decrees 
of the divine will, which shall be made known to 
us. The struggles, passions, and various actions 
of men belonging to other planets than our own 
will likewise be explained by the general plan of 
Providence, which will appear to us in all its dis- 
tinctness. Spectators of God's dominion over his 
creatures, we shall be made acquainted with the 
motives for his decrees, and shall proclaim their 
universal grandeur. 

If we pass from these cosmologic grandeurs to 
that which is personal to us, we shall also compre- 
hend God's action in regard to ourselves ; the part 
which He assigned us during our earthly life, His 
reasons for afflicting us during that period with 
misfortunes, grief, and tears, and the compensa- 
tions which He reserved for us during our succeed- 
ing lives. We shall understand that our misfortunes 
on this earth were merely the preparations by which 
God paved the way for our future happiness, and 



88 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

we shall even perceive, in spite of our humbleness 
and the small space which we occupy in the infin- 
ity of worlds, what part has fallen to our lot in the 
harmony of the universe. 

In the presence of such prospects, how can any 
one fear death ? Death is only a natural incident 
in the continuity of our existences, and it is des* 
tined to open to us a career of eternal happiness. 
Let us become thoroughly imbued with this thought, 
in order that we may endure the critical moment 
of the separation of soul and body, and banish the 
apprehension which that dreaded moment arouses 
in the heart of all men. 

In the following chapters we shall enumerate the 
joys to be found beyond the threshold, the chief 
subject of this work. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Joys beyond the Threshold. — We shall meet 
in Heaven. 

OF all the joys which await us after death, the 
first which is assured to us is that we shall 
again find upon the threshold of our new life those 
whom we have loved and lost. 

To establish this fact I start from the following 
train of reasoning : — 

Whatever may be the evolutions, the transfor- 
mations through which we must pass after death, 
they are the same for all men. Thus we are sub- 
ject to the self-same metamorphoses, on leaving this 
earth, we traverse the same road traversed by those 
who preceded us to the tomb. Hence we must 
meet them in the new abiding-place which is their 
lot. How many consolations lie in this one thought, 
— that death, far from severing the ties which bound 
us to loved ones, to parents and friends, does but 
reunite us to them for eternity ! 

The friend of my childhood, the companion of my 
youth, was named Henry Barre. He was the son 
of a glover and haberdasher, whose shop was situ- 



90 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

ated in the Rue du Cardinal at Montpellier, just op- 
posite the apothecary-shop kept by my father, Jean 
Figuier. We were sent together, as mere children, 
to the dame school of Mother Grand-Jean, in the 
Place du Petit-Scel. Mother Grand-Jean was a tail, 
thin woman, who sat in a high arm-chair, with a 
rod as long as the room, within easy reach, which 
she used to correct from a distance, with a tap on 
the head or shoulders, any child who fell asleep or 
rebelled. We went together later on to M. Crozal's 
boarding-school, on the ground floor of a fine house 
in the Rue Embouque-d'or, whose second story was 
occupied by the Faculty of Sciences, then including 
Professors Gergonne, Lentheric, Balard, and other 
distinguished men. Finally, we were both sent to 
the grammar-school as day scholars. 

Henry Barre was a studious and attentive scholar, 
but I was heedless enough. I never studied be- 
tween the morning and afternoon sessions. I 
devoted the entire interval to furious and endless 
games with comrades as hot-headed as myself, — 
hide-and-seek, leap-frog, ball. Our games were 
renewed at five o'clock, when school closed, and 
lasted until nightfall. There were mad races and 
hand-to-hand contests, that left us exhausted and 
panting with fatigue ; which did not however pre- 
vent us from beginning anew next day. 

By these endless sports I lost the instruction 
which I might have gained ; but I gained the 
robust constitution which has never left me. 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 91 

It was only in rhetoric and philosophy that 
Father Flottes, our teacher, afterward professor of 
the Faculty of Letters, seeing in me some literary 
aptitudes, succeeded in inspiring me with a taste 
for study. I made sufficient progress to win the 
prize for rhetoric and for a philosophical essay. 

Father Flottes liked to read my compositions to 
the other pupils. He considered my style " too 
redundant ; " but he added that Quintilian did not 
object to this fault in youth, as it disappears with 
age. And when Quintilian is on your side, you 
may hold yourself to be a fair classical scholar. 

But I never acquired any idea of mathematics at 
school, for want of good teachers. Still I had to 
know how to cipher in order to pass the examina- 
tions which precede any university degree. Henry 
Barre, who was all-accomplished, constituted him- 
self my teacher in mathematics. Thanks to him, 
at eighteen I took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, 
for which an extensive knowledge of mathematics 
was requisite, since it embraced the half of algebra 
and rectilinear trigonometry. 

I shall never forget the agitation and singular 
emotion which I felt one evening on hearing my 
young friend, who was also my master, explain the 
physical theory of the rainbow to me. 

Is there any phenomenon at once more majestic, 
more impressive, and more beautiful than the splen- 
did appearance known under the name, both exact 
and poetic, of rainbow ? Whenever we witness the 



92 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

wondrous spectacle of this sort of gigantic bridge 
spanning the horizon across the celestial arch, 
where the richest colors play in regular bands, 
we feel a longing desire to know the real cause of 
this magnificent piece of stage scenery in the open 
air. 

Newton gave us the physico-mathematical ex- 
planation of the rainbow. 

Every one knows that light, white light, is the 
result of the union of the seven primary colors, — 
violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, red, and orange. 
In fact, a ray of solar light passing through a prism 
made of transparent glass or clear water gives us a 
colored band, reproducing the seven colors above 
named. It is an experiment which has now become 
commonplace. 

The rainbow is the result of the decomposition of 
the light of the sun, produced by means of the 
drops of water suspended in the air. We know 
that this phenomenon occurs only after a rain 
which, owing to peculiar meteorological circum- 
stances, allows tiny globules of water to float in the 
air while the sun is shining at the opposite extreme 
of the horizon. The drops of water in suspension 
play the part of small liquid prisms which decom- 
pose the light into its primary colors. 

The rainbow resulting from the decompo- 
sition of light by globules of water floating in the 
atmosphere, we must turn our back to the sun 
in order to see it ; so that the rays of light, once 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 93 

decomposed, are reflected in the interior of the 
drop of water, and meet the eye of the spectator. 
If he turn in the direction of the sun, the effect 
vanishes. 

There is thus a double cause for the rainbow : 
the decomposition of light into its seven elementary 
colors, effected inside the drops of water ; and the 
reflection of these decomposed rays which takes 
place inside the same drop of water. 

The rainbow appears in full splendor only in the 
morning and at sunset. This is because the nearer 
the sun is to the horizon, the greater is the visible 
portion of the arch. In proportion as the sun rises 
in the heavens the arch decreases, and it completely 
disappears when the sun is forty-two degrees above 
the horizon. 

Newton summed up in an algebraic formula all 
the conditions on which this phenomenon depends ; 
namely, the width of each band of color, the exact 
proportions of each of them, the shape of the arch 
according to the height in the sky, etc. 

This theory my young friend developed for me 
on the blackboard. As he traced the series of 
corollaries of the Newtonian law, each phase and 
each condition of the phenomenon appeared, one 
after the other, with its clear, rational, and perfect 
explanation ; and the most minute secondary pecu- 
liarities were explained with the most amazing 
precision. 

As all these deductions were thus drawn, one by 



94 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

one, master and pupil were both overcome by deep 
emotion ; and when the calculation ended, tears 
flowed from their eyes. 

Laugh who will at this outburst of sensibility in 
two young students before the solution of a problem 
in mathematics ; but we were working at the time 
in my little room on a summer night. The open 
window showed us the moonlight reflected, on the 
horizon, in a long silvery ribbon, in the Mediterra- 
nean. The stars shone in the sky, and the poetry of 
that sight combined with the marvels of science to 
throw our souls into a state of emotion readily un- 
derstood by those who love both science and Nature. 

To rest us after our studies we had music, dear 
to all Southerners. The Catholic Society of Mont- 
pellier had arranged organ masses in the Church of 
the White Penitents, sung in the gallery by amateurs 
of the town, and in his leisure moments directed 
by Laurens, secretary of the Faculty of Medicine, 
but an artist to his very marrow. Laurens, who 
died director of the Montpellier Museum of Paint- 
ing and Sculpture, made engravings and lithographs 
for illustrated papers of Paris, representing the 
most interesting points in the scenery of Lower 
Languedoc and Provence, as well as the costumes 
and types of beauty of Aries and Provence. He 
was also passionately addicted to ancient music. 
The masses which he gave at the Church of the 
White Penitents were by Cherubini, Sebastian 
Bach, and earlier masters. 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 95 

One had to be able to read music at sight to gain 
admission to the masses of Laurens. We took as 
teacher, at ten francs a month, an old musician from 
the orchestra of the theatre, Father Vincent, who 
was only half as big as his double-bass, and had to 
climb upon a stool in order to play his instrument. 
He was an excellent musician, who soon enabled 
us to " sol-fa " at sight. Henry was gifted with a 
pretty counter-tenor voice, — one of those voices 
now in but little demand, but very useful as soprani 
in pieces for several voices where women are not 
allowed, — and I had a robust tenor. Father Vin- 
cent formed the third note in the harmony with 
his double-bass. 

Is there anything more delightful than to take 
part ill those beautiful musical compositions by the 
old masters, whose harmony penetrates and thrills 
you ? The Colonne Concerts at Paris have their 
charm ; but can you compare the cold impression 
received by the music-lover, seated in his chair, 
with that of the performer, who mingles his voice 
with the symphonies of the choruses and the tones 
of the organ re-echoing from the arches of a 
church ? 

My family, made up of rigid Huguenots, were 
not pleased at my visits to a Catholic church. My 
father was born at Sommi£res, a small town in Gard 
at the foot of the Cevennes, the scene of bloody 
battles during the war of the Protestant peasants 
against the soldiers of Louis XIV. ; and my mater- 



96 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

nal grandfather, Louis Gourgas, was a bonded ware- 
house-keeper of salt, and possessor of vineyards at 
Lunel, not far from Nismes, where such fearful 
dramas took place during the long period of the 
Camisard war. My mother scolded me well for 
missing the Protestant service on Sunday morning 
and going to the Papists ; but I won her forgive- 
ness by accompanying her that same Sunday 
afternoon to the Protestant Church. 

Thursday of each week was devoted by us to long 
excursions into the country. There was once, just 
outside of Montpellier, a lonely valley planted with 
great trees and watered by a pretty stream, — I 
mean Valette Woods, now vanished. We would 
start at six in the morning, — Henry with his natur- 
alist's box for plants and insects, I with my net for 
butterflies. What pleasant hours we passed, bathed 
in sunshine and verdure, seeking for insects and 
plants ! I have seen many collections of insects 
and butterflies since then. I have examined those 
of Holland and the Museum at Paris ; I have ad- 
mired the specimens collected by Dr. Chenu, in the 
Delessert Museum, and those of Dr. Sichel, the ocu- 
list, who was also a bold hunter of butterflies. But 
nothing can ever make me forget the little box of 
painted wood into which I pinned my insects ; for 
each of those specimens recalled an incident in my 
morning strolls in Valette Woods. 

When obliged by fatigue to stop and rest, we 
stretched ourselves in the shade of an oak or a 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 97 

chestnut, eacli with a book. Mine was a volume of 
J. J. Rousseau, — the Confessions, Emile, or the 
New Heloise ; for in my youth I had a genuine pas- 
sion for the writings of the Genevese philosopher. 
Henry, more matter of fact, read some anatomical 
treatise. 

Another favorite spot for our natural-history 
trips was the shore of the Mediterranean. Now a 
railroad takes us in twenty minutes from Montpellier 
to Palavas, where a seashore resort has sprung up, 
with elegant cottages and luxurious hotels. But at 
that time Palavas, situated at the mouth of the Lez 
and at the meeting of the canals near the salt 
marshes, was only a fishing-village. It was known 
as the Cabins, and consisted of not more than a 
score of huts. We followed the banks of the Lez 
to reach the Cabins, because we could gather on 
our way the plants that grew on its shores before 
we gathered those of the beach, which formed an 
interesting flora at all seasons. 

When our botanical harvest was finished, we 
entered the hut of some fisherman and dined on a 
good plate of bouillabaisse, cooked by the master 
of the house. 

Bouillabaisse is not what people foolishly ima- 
gine. It has nothing in common with what is served 
under that name in Parisian restaurants, which is 
made up of a few lobster claws and scraps of mul- 
let and bar, with a suspicion of saffron. Southern 
bouillabaisse is a fish-chowder. For the meat of beef- 

7 



98 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

stew is substituted fish of all sorts, made unfit for 
sale by the accidents of the take or by their quality. 
These are boiled in water for a long time ; the 
flavor is enhanced by saffron and various spices, 
and the whole is then poured over slices of bread. 
The bread and broth are eaten first, — that is the 
fish-chowder. The boiled fish comes afterward ; 
and when you have swallowed a fisherman's bouilla- 
baisse, you can, I assure you, go all day without 
having your stomach cry out for more food. 

Henry and I entered the medical school as stu- 
dents. Henry devoted himself to anatomy, under 
Dubreuil ; and I to chemistry, with Balard. As he 
was an indefatigable worker, he won the position 
of anatomical preparator after a successful compe- 
tition. Under his direction and instructions I pre- 
pared for the examination in anatomy, the second 
examination in medicine, without making any break 
in my chemical and physical studies, for which I 
began to feel a liking, which was greatly to increase 
later on, and to lead me to teach chemistry at the 
Montpellier School of Pharmacy and afterward in 
Paris. 

However, Henry had no money ; and his parents 
urged him to choose a profession which would in- 
sure him a future. He decided on military surgery. 
He passed the examination for surgeon's assist- 
ant with honor, and having gained his degree, put 
himself at the disposal of his military chiefs. He 
was sent to Constantine. I escorted him to the 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 99 

stas:e-coach for Marseilles, and took leave of him 
with a sad and secret presentiment, which was but 
too well justified. 

In fact, no sooner had he reached Constantine, 
than he was attacked by one of those violent fevers 
so common in Algeria in the early days of coloni- 
zation, and he had great difficulty in shaking it 
off. Later, the Crimean War breaking out, he 
was ordered to the hospital at Yarna. But two 
months after the beginning of his service he was 
attacked by typhus, which raged as an epidemic in 
the hospital, and he died. 

I received this sad news at Paris, and my heart 
was torn. 

My readers will pardon these personal memories. 
My purpose is to call up in their minds similar im- 
pressions, to recall to their memory those whom 
they have loved and who have been torn from 
them, and to give birth within them to the consol- 
ing thought that they shall yet meet again those 
who have been taken away from their tenderness. 

Yes, our friends, our parents, our children, our 
wives, — all those we have loved and lost, — we 
shall meet them all in our heavenly home. They 
will greet us on the threshold of eternity ; they will 
be our guides in those new domains, with which 
they have had time to grow familiar ; and we will 
again take up with them the chain of happiness 



100 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

broken by our separation. Can anything be more 
potent to soften the apprehension of our end than 
the certainty of soon meeting the beings whom we 
have loved and who have preceded us to the tomb ? 

Can that be happiness which is not shared with 
those we love ? Must not heavenly affections be 
the continuation and complement of those here 
below ? As we established in " The To-morrow of 
Death," the memory of our previous existences, 
which we lack on earth, will be our privilege in 
heaven. Memory is, in truth, the faculty essential 
and indispensable to our individuality when raised 
from the dead. Without memory, there would be 
no identity, and to be born again with no recollec- 
tion of our past existence would not be to be born 
again, but to fall into oblivion. Memory being the 
privilege of a man arisen from the dead, he will have 
perfectly present to his thought the feelings which 
he cherished during his earthly life, for his friends, 
for his relations, for those whose character and 
virtues he admired. Our heart will not be changed 
after death ; it will remain what it was, loving and 
remembering that it loved, even disposed to love yet 
more than on earth, to double its friendship, its 
love, its gratitude, and its admiration, — for the 
obstacles which the incidents and difficulties of life 
here below opposed to its feelings will cease to exist 
in spheres above. 

Two friends have lived on earth, united by a 
close and constant affection. They have suffered 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 101 

together ; they have battled, side by side, in the 
struggle for life. The existence of one was that of 
the other. They had their work, their desires, their 
ambitions, their efforts, their hopes, in common. 
They looked forward to the same goal ; they walked 
in the same path. They understood their duties to 
their country and their fellow-beings in one and 
the same way. They prayed to the same God. 
They had but a single heart and a single thought. 
Death alone could separate them. And do you 
think that the mere accident of death, which counts 
for so little in the plan of Nature, could break all 
the ties which existed between them ? Do you 
think that they could thereafter be strangers, 
unknown to each other ? Lost, each for himself, 
in the realms of space, are they to begin, far from 
each other, a new and independent career ? Shall 
they be refused the just reward of their mutual 
devotion, which consists in their eternal reunion 
and in the resumption of their former affection ? It 
cannot be. Everything in the universe is constant, 
eternal. The moral world can be no exception to 
the physical world. 

Father, who hast formed the wisdom, the honor, 
the soul of a beloved son, shaft thou not enjoy in 
celestial homes the joy of reunion with him who 
was, alas the day ! torn from thy arms by relentless 
death ? 

Son, who hast watched with ceaseless tenderness 
and solicitude over a venerated father and hast lost 



102 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

him, shalt thou not, when thy turn comes to make 
thy way to heavenly homes, be reunited to him 
whom thy heart has never ceased to love ? 

Husband and wife, you who have trodden to- 
gether the thorny paths of life ; who have found in 
your reciprocal love, your touching abnegation, 
efficient help against deception, bitterness, grief, 
and misfortune ; who have worshipped together 
that God who inspires the sacred sentiment of love 
in the hearts of human couples, — shall you be de- 
prived of the reward due to your virtues, which con- 
sists in enjoying together the pleasures of the new 
life reserved, on celestial shores, for virtuous souls ? 

If it were so, then heaven were not heaven, that 
is the place for the just reward and beatitude of 
human beings risen again in power and glory. 

Ah ! let us not doubt it, death interrupts noth- 
ing : it does but improve and perfect ; it does but 
complete and strengthen the relations of beings 
who felt mutual sympathy upon earth. All that 
was good, healthy, and generous in hearts bound 
together by close friendship, shall be preserved in 
the. new life, as an integral part of their being. 
The sentiments of the soul will not be changed ; 
they will merely be purified, freed from every 
imperfection, every weakness, every impure alloy. 
And instead of being transient and ephemeral, as 
here, they will have all eternity before them. 

Let us, therefore, cease to weep for the dead ; 
they are happier than we. Beati qui requiescant ! 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 103 

You have closed the eyes of an aged father or a 
beloved mother; you have seen them sleeping their 
last sleep ; you have kissed for the last time, with 
gratitude and respect, that hand which formed and 
guided your youth, which taught you the ways of life, 
which watched over your days and cared for your 
existence. Later on, you buried in its sad shroud 
your own child, the sweet child that you cradled 
on your knee, that you watched through its nights 
of illness, that intoxicated you with its smile, that 
clasped you in its tiny arms to express to you its 
gratitude and love. You have seen the dimming 
of those soft eyes which reflected its young soul, 
full of love for you ; and you have seen your dearest 
hopes go out with its little coffin. You have seen 
your young wife laid on the funeral bier, and the 
half of yourself harvested by pitiless death. You 
have seen your brothers, your sisters, your friends, 
the loved companions of your childhood stretched on 
their last bed, and you have cried aloud : " Oh, my 
God, how heavy is Thy arm, how bitter is Thy will ! 
Why hast Thou condemned me to lose the objects of 
my best affections ? Why hast Thou given me a 
son, if I must so soon see him torn from my arms ? 
What had he done, my poor child, whom I formed 
myself, to merit so cruel a fate ? Why hast Thou 
robbed me of so many friends, so many kind 
relations ? Why couldst Thou not let me enjoy yet 
longer the joy of living beside them, with them, in 
the constant intimacy which was our common 



104 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

delight? They would have dispelled all my sor- 
rows, they would have comforted all my griefs. I 
should have lived for them, as they lived for me. 
And they are gone ! Death has cast over them 
his gloomy pall. Those souls, who were so deeply 
devoted to me, are parted from mine, leaving it 
torn and bleeding. I would have given my life to 
keep them, and they have left me. Their heart 
has ceased to beat, and mine still throbs on. Oh, 
Lord, why hast Thou thus changed our destinies ? 
Why didst Thou not recall me to Thyself, in their 
place ? They were good, sensitive, virtuous ; they 
practised the precepts of morality and religion ; 
they were worthy to remain on earth, to serve as 
examples to other men. Why hast Thou removed 
them from life, leaving me hopeless and alone ? " 

So speaks in his sorrow the unfortunate being 
who has fallen a victim to the sad conditions of 
earth ; but let him listen to the voices of reason 
and philosophy, and he will be consoled, and hope 
will return to his heart. 

Why indeed dost thou weep, desolate husband, 
upon the coffin-lid of her whom thou hast lost ; 
and thou, luckless orphan, why shed tears upon the 
tomb of thy father ? Disconsolate mother, why la- 
ment at every memory of thy child ; and you, 
sad friends, why should you grieve at the thought 
of those whom you loved and whom you see no 
more ? What was it truly which was borne to the 
grave ? Was it the soul of those for whom you 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 105 

weep ? No ; it was their mere material remains, a 
nameless remnant, useless dust. When life for- 
sakes the body and no longer defends it against 
outward influences, it is decomposed and reduced to 
its chemical elements ; but the soul, an immaterial 
substance, escapes all destruction, and is set free 
from this dead matter. 

It is not, then, to the tomb that you should look 
to see him for whom you weep ; it is to heaven. 
The earth that covers his coffin does not cover him. 
He does not sleep six feet under ground ; he lives 
in infinite space. It is there that he awaits you. 
That soul which smiled upon you, for which you 
mourn, for which you long, has flown to higher 
spheres, where it shall lead an existence full of bliss. 
Why, then, consider the tomb ? The body buried 
there is not the being whom you knew. That body 
was only a transitory garment, which he has cast off 
to put on raiment more beautiful, more glorious far. 
His soul has ended its earthly career. His vir- 
tues, his purity, having earned for him the crown 
of immortality, he now enjoys unmixed happiness 
in infinite space. 

Then dry your tears, m}^ friend ; take fresh cour- 
age. Sursum corda ! Lift up your heart and your 
eyes ! Admire Nature and bless the Creator, who 
demands of us a brief struggle only that He may 
crown our earthly career with immortality. 

Be comforted, father, mother, who weep 
for a beloved child ; and you, unhappy widow, 



106 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

whose days are henceforth vowed to solitude and 
sorrow ! Cease to afflict yourself, tender sister, 
with memories of a deeply regretted brother ! 
Friends, deplore no more the loss of those who have 
left you ! Bleeding wounds in lacerated hearts, close 
beneath the balm of hope. Your beloved dead have 
not ceased to live. They exist in other spheres, in- 
accessible to our eyes, but not to the light of reason 
and philosophy. Behold them where they are, — 
that is, in the seraphic world, which is their ever- 
lasting home. 

No doubt you do not see them ; but could you 
see them when they were parted from you by the 
incidents and obligations of life ? They have set 
out on a distant journey into an unknown land in 
a higher world : that is all the difference. But we 
are still, both of us, inhabitants of the same solar 
system. They are in heaven, we are on earth ; 
that is all that divides us. But they live ; they 
think of us, as we think of them ; they see us ; 
they are interested in our actions ; they look for- 
ward to the moment of our reunion in the happy 
realm where they abide, and which shall some day 
be our home. 

In short, to die is not to perish ; it is to change 
our form, to pass into another state ; it is to array 
our personality, our individuality, in a fresh dress ; 
it is to leave the earth to enter the universal 
home. 

Thus considered, death can raise no fears in the 



WE SHALL MEET IN HEAVEN. 107 

heart of man, who should no longer regard it as 
the destruction of his being, but as its physical and 
moral renewing ; who should no longer consider 
it as the end of his life, but as the sequence and 
natural continuation of his earthly existence, as the 
chain which binds the inhabitants of our globe to 
the people of the skies. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Joys beyond the Threshold Continued. — Studies 
and Tasks interrupted on Earth will be con- 
tinued in the Abode of the Blest. — Vocations 
missed here will find Full Scope after Death. 
— Schemes cut short will be carried out in 
Higher Worlds. 

LET us go on with our account of the joys re- 
served for us on the farther side of the 
tomb. 

A man has devoted his life to the study of a sci- 
ence, an art, an industry, or any work whatsoever 
having genuine importance, — he has used all the 
strength of his intellect to become an illustrious 
scientist, an eminent artist, an eloquent orator, a 
composer of melodious songs and sweet harmonies, a 
poet with lofty aspirations, — and all at once death 
lays him low ! The dark spot which dimmed the 
horizon of his life has become the black cloud en- 
wrapping his last days. Do you think that an acci- 
dent so insignificant as death, which is but a 
transitory phase in human existence, should de- 
prive the scientist, the orator, the painter, the poet, 
of the superior qualities with which he had fur- 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 109 

nished his soul by his labor and perseverance ? Do 
you believe that talents won by so much fatigue, 
suffering, self-sacrifice, and sorrow can be forever 
lost to him and his fellow-creatures ? It is impos- 
sible. God does not create the choicest intellects 
to destroy them almost at once ; such an inference 
would contradict his supreme logic. Nothing is 
lost in the material world, say the chemists ; noth- 
ing is destroyed in intellectual creation, philosophy 
tells us. The brilliant tribute of knowledge, intel- 
lect, and varied faculties which man has acquired 
at the cost of so manv efforts, cannot be taken from 

%l 7 

him. He will retain them when he passes to the 
farther side of the tomb. Mozart died at thirty- 
five, after amazing and delighting his contempora- 
ries by the productions of his precocious genius ; 
and shall his genius and his personality vanish 
forever because death prematurely arrested his 
earthly career ? We cannot think so ; we believe 
that Mozart, risen again, now charms celestial 
phalanxes by his bewildering melodies. Raphael 
at thirty-seven dropped into the night of the tomb 
the brush which had created so many masterpieces, 
and must he therefore stop short in his sublime 
career ? No ! his soul continues, doubt it not, to 
scatter masterpieces among the happy beings who 
people the ethereal fields. Has Victor Hugo ceased 
to write because death has chilled his hand ? No ! 
the work of genius is not interrupted by the cessa- 
tion of earthly life. What we have begun here be- 



110 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

low is continued above. Our poor globe, inhabited 
by commonplace or wicked beings, is unfit for the 
noble efforts, the lofty productions of intellect. 
The radiant realm of ethereal space is a sojourn 
better suited to the emanations of the spirit. We 
cannot admit that he who dies in the possession of 
vast knowledge and varied talents shall be as des- 
titute of faculties and intellectual power when he 
enters into immortality, as he who lived in igno- 
rance, indifferent to himself and others, unac- 
quainted with Nature and with God. The latter 
will be born again as imperfect, from a spiritual 
point of view, as he was on earth ; for each of us 
will begin his second existence with the intellectual 
and moral patrimony which he acquired on this 
globe. If that patrimony be nought, he will have 
to earn it by toil and study ; if it be, on the contrary, 
rich, extensive, and varied, he will perfect it yet 
further. 

In proportion as man advances in life, he be- 
comes more skilful in his art or his trade, as well 
as in the conduct of his affairs. He has a more 
profound knowledge of men and things. Homer 
describes the council of old men, at the siege of 
Troy, as the asylum of prudence, experience, and 
wisdom. Wisdom is indeed the lot of age ; while 
youth is the period of inexperience, errors, mistakes, 
and awkward blunders. We believe that the old 
man's wisdom will accompany him after death, and 



STUDIES AND TASKS. Ill 

that it will serve in his new abode to guide his 
second existence aright, to preserve him from the 
dangers which it doubtless offers, in common with 
the earthly life. 

Why does the old man, near his end, still cherish 
hopes which seem foolish and ridiculous to every 
one else ? Why do bold schemes, pleasant projects, 
dispel the melancholy of his latter years ? Because 
he has a vague and secret presentiment that after 
the shadows of the evening of life shall come the 
bright lights of a new dawn, and a hope that the 
plans which he secretly ponders may some day 
be realized. It is not in vain that he has labored 
and suffered here below ; his experience and his 
wisdom shall not be taken from him. Then let him 
dream, during his last days of life, of enterprises to 
be realized when he has crossed the terrible bridge 
that leads to eternity. 

Why does the consumptive, yielding at last to the 
inroads of disease apparent to all and hidden from 
him alone, make the most enchanting projects for 
the future at the very moment when death is about 
to clasp him ? Because he unconsciously perceives 
the frontiers of the celestial kingdom which he 
is soon to enter, and where the things of which he 
has dreamed in his last hours shall vet be realized. 

Still another consideration. Each of us comes 
into the world with some aptitude, vocation, or 
natural talent. A man is born a poet, painter, 



112 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

sculptor, architect, mathematician, trader, etc. 
Now, nothing is more unusual, in this existence, 
than for a man to practise the art or profession 
which he loves. One man feels within him the 
faculties of a poet, and the necessities or the chances 
of life make him a baker, like Reboul at Nismes, or 
a hair-dresser, like Jasmin at Agen. One who re- 
ceived from nature the gift of musical inspiration, 
who could write the orchestral parts for an opera 
off-hand, is a grocer. Another made for travelling, 
who has all the qualities requisite for remote 
expeditions, spends his life in selling calico and 
measuring off cloth at the back of a shop. 

It is useless to multiply these common instances, 
which we can all recall, in an individual experience. 
It is certain that we, almost all of us, practise pro- 
fessions contrary to our tastes ; and that this is one 
of the greatest torments of existence. But the new 
world which is to receive us after death is arranged 
quite otherwise than the earth, to give satisfaction 
to personal vocations. There, there shall be no 
more poverty, no more inequality of goods, no more 
social iniquities, no more hatred or envy, no more 
imperious necessity for providing for our daily 
subsistence, no more professions carried on quite 
contrary to our natural tastes. Each will follow 
his inclination and obey his calling. He who was 
obliged throughout his earthly life to do violence 
to his personal inclinations shall give them free 
rein, when he has put on the bright array of the 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 113 

celestial oattalions. The baker or the hair-dresser 
who was forced to stifle his poetic genius will give 
it free vent, and compose the verses which he 
pondered in his back-shop. The grocer who, born 
for musical composition, has dreamed of harmony 
and melody, of fugue and counterpoint, his whole 
life long, and has endured the pangs of one who has 
missed his vocation, will have leisure to cultivate 
his natural talent, and will charm the natives of 
space by his compositions. The lover of travels 
who lived in a stupid office will unfold his wings, 
and visit the farthest shores of the ethereal 
kingdom. 

While he is still within his mother's womb, the 
child is already provided with various organs which 
are of no use to him. He has eyes, to see nothing ; 
feet, with which he may not walk ; ears, to hear 
nothing ; a stomach, to digest nothing ; a brain, to 
think of nothing. And yet wait a few weeks, and 
these various organs, useless to him by reason of 
the liquid medium wherein he floated and of the 
limited space wherein he was confined, will serve 
him to see, to hear, to move from place to place, to 
act, to conceive thoughts. It is thus with men 
living on the earth. They possess in their inner- 
most being higher faculties, which are generally 
useless to them, because they are counteracted by 
the accidents of life, by misery, by suffering, by the 
evil conditions of the society into which they were 

8 



114 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

born. But wait a little, — that is, until the moment 
comes for the separation of body and soul, — and 
these faculties, which were useless on earth, will be 
of great service in the higher realms to be attained. 
Then the individual will have the supreme satis- 
faction of living in accord with his natural tastes, 
and of following out the vocation which he was 
forced to ignore during his earthly life. 

How many noble plans are prevented, on earth, 
by the evil conditions of human society, by hatred 
or envy, by opposing interests, by the resistance of 
obstinate routine ? Let not the authors of noble 
plans, nipped in the bud by these different causes, be 
discouraged ; let them continue to work, until their 
last day, at the task which they fondly dreamed 
of executing, and which they never succeeded in 
completing. The undertaking which they began 
here below shall be continued by them after death. 
Never lose courage, bold pioneers of a new idea, 
crushed at its birth by the ignorance or the malice 
of men. Cut short in its advance among humanity, 
it shall be developed in the society of superhuman 
beings, and the success which it lacked on earth 
shall be won in higher spheres. 

Personal instances always speak more forcibly 
than general considerations. I may therefore be 
permitted to refer here to the attempt which has 
occupied me for many years, to create a scientific 
theatre, and to tell what has come of it. 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 115 

The theatre might, in my opinion, exert a most 
happy influence over public morals. The dramatic 
writer holds the attention of the crowd nightly for 
several hours. Can any stronger means be asked 
to expand the intellect and increase knowledge ? 
And yet in no country has either government, 
municipality, academy, philanthropist, or friend 
of progress ever dreamed of using this mighty lever 
for the purpose of instruction and morality. It is 
with a heedless eye that we in France see the thea- 
tre swerving from the paths of literature once its 
glory, occupied merely in appealing to the eye, 
striving only to seek all sorts of sensual stimulants 
for the spectator. Nor do they heed the fact that 
among all nations of Europe the masses of the peo- 
ple flock to music-hall concerts to dull their senses 
with alcohol and tobacco, to feast on platitudes and 
indecencies. 

I have always thought that the theatre might con- 
tribute to reclaim the people by setting before them 
the great lessons to be learned from 1Jie life and 
work of illustrious scientists, by teaching them 
great scientific truths under cover of dramatic 
action. 

Science has in our day transformed the world. 
Sharing more and more in our existence, it has 
largely increased individual well-being. It has 
facilitated friendly relations between nations, and 
vastly multiplied the means of transportation and 
communication. It has revolutionized manufac- 



116 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

tures, changed the spirit and basis of trade, and 
modified the art of war in its various forms. Lit- 
erature and philosophy begin to feel its influence, 
and cannot afford to neglect either its principles 
or its discoveries. Making its way everywhere, sci- 
ence must needs find a place in the theatre ; and it 
may create a new style of drama, characterized by 
honesty, morality, and information. 

In a democratic State like France, where, thanks 
to universal suffrage, the people are supreme rul- 
ers, the people must be educated. There should 
therefore be a constant endeavor to instruct 
them ; and when a means hitherto unsuspected 
offers us at the same time theatrical amusement, 
scientific instruction, and examples of the highest 
morality, the partisans of social progress, those who 
desire fresh horizons for a new society, should hail 
this innovation with gratitude. 

As we have already said, governments, rulers of 
States, city officials, take too little interest in the- 
atrical masters. They neglect one of the most 
powerful means for enlightening, instructing, and 
reclaiming the masses. Music-halls swarm on 
every hand, and will at last take the place of thea- 
tres. It is impossible, we are told, to struggle 
against these places, protected as they are by free 
trade. But side by side with the material interests 
of the purveyors of vulgarities, are the moral inter- 
ests of the nation and care for the public good. 
To require the creation in the great cities of France 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 117 

of popular theatres for drama and comedy, to be 
devoted solely to the performance of moral and in- 
structive plays, would, no doubt, be too much to ask 
of the present frivolity of public taste ; but we may 
be allowed to ask the sympathetic aid of all friends 
of progress for the institution, in theatres, of dra- 
matic and scientific afternoon performances, which 
would afford both instruction and amusement to the 
youth of our schools. 

As an instance of the utility of the scientific the- 
atre from the standpoint of popular instruction, I 
will take one of my scientific comedies^ " Franklin's 
Marriage," in which I strove to bring together the 
entire series of physical, mechanical, and psycho- 
logical effects peculiar to thunder and lightning. 
No one who saw a performance of this comedy 
would ever be tempted to regard thunder as a su- 
pernatural manifestation, as" a sign of celestial 
wrath ; as the ancients held, and as many weak, 
ignorant, or superstitious minds, slaves to the tra- 
ditions of the past, still hold. All who saw my 
play must regard it as merely a grand and beauti- 
ful phenomenon of Nature, which should be ad- 
mired and studied, without other thought than to 
pay homage to science, which revealed to us its 
causes, and to the genius of Franklin, who gave us 
in the lightning-rod the means of warding off its 
dangers. 

Doubtless books on popular science aid in dis- 
pelling public prejudices concerning thunder ; but 



118 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

a book is cold and silent. A dramatic performance 
which shows the spectator the physical phenomena 
related to thunder and lightning in a material and 
striking form, would impress this class of ideas 
more strongly upon the mind of youth. 

Besides the knowledge of certain facts in physi- 
cal or natural science, such a theatre as we speak 
of would put upon the stage the life of famous 
scholars. Instead of taking as the chief character 
of a drama Cromwell, Louis XIV., Richelieu, or 
Mazarin, we should bring upon the stage Denis 
Papin, Gutenberg, Kepler, Benjamin Franklin, or 
Robert Fulton. I am the first to use any of these 
men as the hero of a play, because dramatic au- 
thors are usually unfamiliar with events in the life 
of naturalists and physicists. Still, illustrious 
scholars are quite as well fitted for interesting 
dramas or amusing comedies as political person- 
ages or soldiers. A scientist is a man. Like all 
men he has his time for youth and love, his mo- 
ments of pain and depression. Should he interest 
us less than an imaginary character, because he has 
enriched his age and his country with an immortal 
work ? There are, in the various periods of the 
existence of scientific men, subjects for dramas or 
comedies, subjects capable of rousing or touching, 
of stirring to laughter or to tears. Others might 
compose, as I have done, from the combined data 
of history and science, interesting plays, which 
would at the same time possess the advantage of 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 119 

being instructive. Every one nowadays deplores 
the stagnation of dramatic art in Europe, and 
loudly demands something fresh. The heroes of 
science transported to the stage would clearly afford 
a theme which would in part answer the desire 
expressed by the cities of every nation, to see the 
theatre enter upon a new line. 

The government of the French republic has done 
wonders to diffuse education throughout all classes 
of society ; nor has there been so vast an impulse 
given to universal education since the time of 
Charlemagne. The State gives free education to 
the people of town and country. Besides official 
instruction, — that is, primary and secondary educa- 
tion, whose circle is constantly enlarging — private 
efforts are most zealously made to multiply the 
means of instruction. Public libraries are every- 
where built ; scientific lectures arc given on every 
hand for both young and old. Cannot the theatre 
be added to all these resources of instruction ? If 
we succeed in teaching some useful truth, in 
explaining some important scientific fact, by a 
drama or comedy, we shall realize the ancient 
adage, utile dulci, we shall contribute to the educa- 
tion of youth, and at the same time extend the 
limits of the dramatic art. 

Such are the considerations which led me to 
attempt the creation of the scientific theatre. 

I devoted ten years of my life to this ungrateful 
task. I have learned the trade of dramatic author, 



120 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

and I have had performed upon various stages in 
Paris and abroad, — 

1st. The Six Parts of the World, an amusing 
piece, with fine stage setting and scenery, based on 
Dumont d'Urville's expedition to the South Pole. 
This piece, first played at the Cluny Theatre, under 
the management of Paul Cl&vcs, was afterward 
given, in a tour through the provinces, under the 
direction of M. Dupoux-Hilaire. 

2d. Denis Papin, an historical play in five acts, 
given in June and July, 1882, at the Gayety Thea- 
tre, Paris, where it ran for fifty performances. 

3d. Gutenberg, an historical play in five acts, 
given for the first time at Strasburg, in December, 
1886, then in a tour through Holland and Alsace- 
Lorraine. 

4th. Four scientific comedies, Franklin' 's Mar- 
riage, introducing the historical fact of Franklin's 
marriage to Deborah Read, as well as the amus- 
ing production on the stage of the various effects 
of thunder ; Trianon Garden, based on the his- 
toric fact of the creation of the various families 
of vegetables by Bernard de Jussieu ; Miss Tele- 
graph, which represents, in the form of comic 
scenes, a singular episode in the invention of the. 
electric telegraph by Samuel Morse ; The Turco's 
Blood, a comic piece based on the transfusion of 
blood. 

These plays were given at afternoon perform- 
ances, in 1889, at the Menus-Plaisirs Theatre. 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 121 

Such is the sum of the labors and efforts which I 
have for ten years devoted to an attempt to found a 
scientific theatre, hoping to enrich French literature 
with a style hitherto unsuspected. 1 

I was well aware of the vast difficulties to be 
contended against in so novel an enterprise. 
Routine, everywhere so powerful, is peculiarly 
persistent and active in the theatre. The smallest 
theatrical innovation confuses every one, or threat- 
ens existing interests. We flock to the Comedie 
Franchise, to applaud Sophocles' King (Edipus, a 
tragedy twenty-four centuries old ; while the most 
unpretending novelty risked upon the stage makes 
the entire literary and dramatic staff frown, and 
instantly produces an attitude of distrust. Dramatic 
critics continually cry out for something new ; and 
when it is produced at the theatre, they cannot 
be too eager to kill it by their ridicule or their 
reproach. 

But I hoped to triumph over these prejudices, 
this opposition, as I surmounted the obstacles which 
I encountered thirty years before, when I inaugu- 
rated the publication of works on popular science. 
Success has cast a veil of oblivion over the opposi- 
tion against which the popularization of science 
originally had to contend ; but it is none the less 
true that the struggle was long and severe. 

1 My scientific plays performed up to this date are collected in 
two volumes in 18mo, published in 1889, by Tresse and Stock, 
under the title, " Science on the Stage (Comedies and Dramas)." 



122 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

When, encouraged by the great success won from 
scholars and the public by Franc,ois Arago's " Scien- 
tific News," published in the " Annual Report of the 
State Observatory," I began my first publications 
of familiar science, I was professor of chemistry 
at the Paris School of Pharmacy. All my col- 
leagues blamed my ambition to popularize science ; 
for a bold fellow who had attempted it, Julia de 
Fontenelle, failed lamentably, throwing that sort 
of thing into great discredit. My friends held aloof ; 
my relatives found fault with me ; editors of great 
scientific works were alarmed ; experts reproached 
me for lowering the dignity of science, by bringing 
it within the reach of all ; and the big wigs of the 
Institute, Chevreul and Claude Bernard at their 
head, uttered cries of " Profanation ! " Claude 
Bernard, in particular, never ceased to cast dis- 
credit on what he called my " hand-books ! " I was 
forced to quit the university, whose every door was 
closed against me, and to offer my resignation as 
professor at the School of Pharmacy, where I 
was lecturing on chemistry as Professor Bussy's 
substitute. 

To-day the popularization of science is looked 
upon as a public benefit ; and he who originated 
it and forced it to triumph is amply rewarded for 
his efforts by the universal success of his work. 
Fashionable people, to whom science was formerly 
a dead letter, now know that they may take an 
interest in all that relates to it; and they enjoy 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 123 

reading books which give them a general smatter- 
ing of and a taste for scientific knowledge. The 
publication of works on popular science, which ap- 
pear in such numbers, in every shape and at every 
price, helps to educate the laborer and to amuse the 
enlightened. Used in all schools, they play a large 
part in the list of studies. The fine works due to 
my more fortunate successors, De Parville, Guille- 
min, Meunier, Tissandier, Felix He'ment, De Fon- 
vielle, my learned rivals and constant friends, keep 
up the public taste for the useful and agreeable 
sides of science. Nor should we forget the eminent 
writer Camille Flammarpn, who had the merit to 
popularize astronomy without debasing it, to inspire 
the masses with a taste for that beautiful science, 
and to create in its favor the great movement 
which is so well known to all. 

In consequence of this general taste for books of 
popular science, a wholly new branch of the book- 
seller's trade — of vast importance, since it annu- 
ally amounts to millions — has been created in 
France within the past twenty years, and rapidly 
spread throughout all nations of both worlds where 
French books are translated, imitated, or written 
expressly in the original languages. 

The same success has not, unfortunately, crowned 
my attempt to create a scientific theatre. 

I did not, however, flatter myself that I could 
succeed in such a task by my own unaided efforts. 
A great work of popular instruction being involved, 



124: JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

the devotion and services of a mere private individ- 
ual, obliged at once to write plays and to direct their 
performance, could not suffice. Such an under- 
taking belonged to the government and municipali- 
ties, supposing them to be convinced of the utility 
of introducing science as a part of the education of 
youth and of the people. Dramatic and scientific 
matinees, such as I gave in 1889 at the Menus- 
Plaisirs Theatre, should be established for the pupils 
of the colleges and city schools of Paris and other 
great cities of France. Unluckily, I have been un- 
able to convert to this idea either the ministers of 
the government, or the city council of Paris, or the 
directors of the subsidized theatres of the Odeon 
and the Come'die Frangaise, who might very easily 
have added one or other of my little plays to the 
classic works which they give every Sunday after- 
noon. Lastly, contrary to my expectations, no 
philanthropist has been found, no friend of science 
and progress, who was willing to patronize this 
dramatic effort and to carry it out successfully. 

The idea was too novel, too far removed from the 
commonplaces of current literature. No one un- 
derstood it, no one supported it. Only fancy ! To 
desire to make a stage hero of a physicist or a 
chemist ; to desire to diffuse science by a new 
method ; to flatter yourself that you could move or 
interest the spectator by incidents from the life of 
a benefactor of humanity, — what a mistake ! Tra- 
dition declares that a scientist should always be 



STUDIES AND TASKS. 125 

greeted with ridicule, not admiration, by the crowd. 
And as for wishing to instruct the public by a 
play, what a queer idea ! The theatre is meant to 
amuse, and not for anything else ! 

So spoke the wise men, and the scientific theatre 
vanished like a cloud. Who now knows of its 
existence ? 

Well, dear reader, that scheme, which failed in 
my hands upon earth, I shall again take up later, — 
that is, when I am dead ! I am fully persuaded 
that it will be easy for me to carry out on high the 
plan which absorbed me so deeply here below. 

Do we, indeed, ever do more than make plans in 
this world ? The average duration of life in Eu- 
rope is about thirty-three years ; but the third of 
that time is devoted to sleep. We have therefore, 
on an average, but twenty-one years to give to 
work. Is so brief an interval enough to carry out 
anything serious ? And should we not rest con- 
tent with making plans, sketches, attempts, — with 
conceiving general ideas ? We have scarce suc- 
ceeded in an undertaking when death overtakes us. 
" When the house is built," says the Arab proverb, 
" death enters in." 

Earth is only a place for preparation ; heaven is 
the domain of execution. Let not the painter fear 
to multiply his studies of landscape or from the liv- 
ing model, and to train himself in drawing, by thor- 
ough study of the works of the great masters ; let 
him cover the walls of his studio with sketches ; 



126 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

he will paint the picture after his death. Let liter- 
ary men trace plans for novels and stories, dra- 
matic authors write skeleton plays. Let poets 
practise rhyming, and accustom themselves to think 
in verse; the finished poems will come later. Let 
musical composers write series after series of har- 
monies without a theme, operas without words ; 
their works shall some day be completed. Let 
architects draw plans with no determinate purpose ; 
the monuments and buildings shall rise somewhere. 
Everything shall be perfected when we have left 
behind this imperfect globe, where all is difficulty, 
hindrance, and discomfort, to soar to higher regions, 
where our corrected works shall shine forth. That 
which was painfully begun on earth shall be easily 
and gloriously completed in heaven. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Idea of Justice and Truth innate in us will 
be realized in our second llfe. 

THERE is in the heart of man a natural feeling 
of justice and truth, of affection and secret 
poetry. Now, all these desires find no satisfaction 
on earth. The idea of goodness and beauty, the 
sense of justice, the love of truth, the craving 
for sympathetic affection, fill our soul from our 
earliest youth, and in the dawn of life furnish us 
with delightful dreams, true heart ecstasies. But 
soon the ideal of which we have dreamed is shattered 
by rude contact with the interests, passions, and 
vices of humanity. Thus the thinker holds himself 
aloof from noisy crowds ; and in woodland solitudes 
or on the seashore, he lets his spirit roam amid the 
vast horizons and the grand spectacles of Nature. 
He listens to the murmurous noises of living and 
inanimate creation, the song of the birds, the music 
of the tumultuous waves, or the brook that flows 
peacefully through the valley. He soars, in his 
lonely reveries, up to the sublime Author of worlds. 
He strives to penetrate the mysteries of human des- 
tinies ; and his soul, stirred by the harmonies of 



128 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

earth and heaven, asks the secret of his own exist- 
ence of the solitary beach, of the wind that blows, 
of the bird that flies through the air, of the star 
that shines in the calm serenity of night. But if 
he would meditate in peace, he must steal away 
from the importunate, the idle, the sceptic, the 
bored, the sarcastic, and the wicked. The more 
lofty are his thoughts concerning Nature and di- 
vinity, the more deeply is he wounded by painful 
contact with the meannesses, pettinesses, jealousies, 
hatreds, and jests of strangers. 

On the other hand, the idea of justice, honor, 
pity for the sufferings of his fellow-men, which man 
cherishes in his innermost heart, is constantly and 
cruelly offended. He sees vice triumphant, and vir- 
tue unrecognized. He sees misfortune follow all 
that is noble, generous, innocent ; friendship turn 
to hate, love become a cause of torment and regret, 
human justice the reverse of equity ; and his soul 
at last is crushed by these continual contradictions 
between his ideal and the realities that surround it. 

No doubt that in the higher homes where all 
purity and love dwell, the ideal dreamed of by 
our heart will be realized. There will be no 
more hate, no more care, no more war, no more 
injustice, no more ingratitude, perfidy, or cruel 
misunderstanding. Friendship is free from all dis- 
simulation, and justice is true to its definition. 

On the other hand, the physical cataclysms, the 
atmospheric disturbances, which too often terrify 



THE IDEA OF JUSTICE. 129 

the inhabitants of earth, as well as the evil climatic 
conditions which cause them such suffering, are 
unknown in the serene regions of space. There, 
where there is no earth, there are no earthquakes ; 
there, where there is no aqueous vapor, there is 
neither rain nor storm ; there, where there is only 
an ethereal medium, of a density nearly null, there 
is neither wind nor tempest. All is harmony, tran- 
quillity, and calm in the physical nature of celestial 
space. 

In a word, the moral and physical ideal dreamed 
of by romantic souls will be fully realized in the 
blessed regions which are to be our refuge at the 
close of our earthly existence. We desire no other 
proof of this than that sense of the ideal of which 
we speak. If this sense be anchored in our souls, it 
is because God put it there. Now God, who is all 
goodness and all justice, cannot have deceived us ; 
he cannot flatter us with a hope which is not to be 
realized. Strive, therefore, inhabitants of our globe, 
to perfect your soul by the practice of duties and 
of virtue ; extend the limits of your mind by the 
study of science ; ennoble your conscience by char- 
ity and goodness, in order to make yourselves wor- 
thy to enter the celestial Eldorado, where your 
entire ideal of happiness shall be accomplished. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Intercourse of Arisen Souls with the Great Men 
of History. — Dialogues with the Dead. 

AFTER the joys of meeting in our new life those 
who are dear to us, of following out our 
chosen calling and of seeing the ideal of our 
dreams made real, comes a satisfaction of another 
kind, — that of becoming acquainted with the great 
men who have occupied an important place in the 
history of humanity by their genius, by their virtues, 
or by the great part which they played, as legisla- 
tors, leaders of an army, conquerors, scientists, or 
artists, in the movement of the life of the people. 

Here we ask the reader's leave to enter for a 
space the domain of hypothesis and imagination. 
We will suppose, to give substance to our ideas, 
that one newly arisen from the dead has arrived in 
the ethereal regions, and desires to enter into rela- 
tions with certain great historic shades. We will 
call this imaginary being Eusebius. 

Eusebius, having laid aside his human personal- 
ity to put on that of an inhabitant of ether, enters 
the first region of the heavenly empyrean where 
his second life is to be spent. 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 131 

We may suppose that he will remain there five or 
six centuries before undergoing a second death, fol- 
lowed by a corresponding resurrection, which will 
conduct him to the second round of the celestial 
ladder. In the medium which is for the time 
being his home, he will find those persons who 
played an important part on earth daring the five 
or six hundred years previous ; and as our newly 
elect was endowed during his earthly existence 
with a highly cultured mind, as his knowledge em- 
braced the history, politics, legislation, and science 
of his time, he looks forward with delight to a closer 
acquaintance with the great men, especially the sci- 
entific men, of that period. 

He must give up all idea, we must note, of finding 
in the zone which he occupies the heroes of an ear- 
lier epoch, — that is, the great men of antiquity, — 
for the reason that the sojourn in any one ethereal 
stratum being but five or six centuries, the great 
men and the people of previous ages have long since 
flown to other levels ; but the sight of the famous 
scholars of the last centuries will amply suffice to 
satisfy his curiosity. 

It is natural enough that in the celestial empy- 
rean the men who filled a certain place in the im- 
portant events of history should meet together, 
according to their former professions and their spe- 
cial class of study : that politicians and legislators 
should gather together to talk of the things of their 
time ; that scientists should collect in groups, to re- 



132 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

call the peculiar circumstances of the perfecting of 
science, and that artists should enjoy arguing to- 
gether upon questions of painting and sculpture. 

There must, therefore, exist groups of these vari- 
ous natures. 

Eusebius prefers to turn toward the group of 
scientific men. With one flutter of his wings he 
reaches that group, and he is happy enough to find 
himself face to face with men whose genius and 
works he has long admired. 1 

He first sought, he longed to see first, in this 
reunion of the heroes of science and the arts, 
Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, the creator of 
that marvellous art which in the fifteenth century 
began to revolutionize the society of Europe, and 
soon after that of the entire world. He who on 
earth was known as John Gutenberg, stood beside 
his valiant spouse, Annette de la Porte-de-Fer, 
who upheld him at every period of his stormy 
career, and who was the providence of his destiny. 
Gutenberg seemed to be thanking her for her con- 
stant devotion and the unchanging attachment to 
which he owed the success of his undertaking. 

Eusebius addressed Gutenberg, congratulating 
him on the vast dimensions assumed, after Ids day, 

1 We ask pardon for using here, for greater clearness, the liter- 
ary artifice known under the name of " Dialogues with the Dead." 
for which Lucian and Plato are distinguished among the ancients, 
and which great French writers, like Fontenelle, Voltaire, and 
Fenelon, have used to set forth important or new truths in an 
original way. 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 133 

by printing, which in the nineteenth century be- 
came the most powerful and most flourishing in- 
dustry in both worlds. He told him of newspapers, 
thanks to printing-machines, printing more than a 
million copies daily, in France, England, and Amer- 
ica ; and he added that such was the immeasura- 
ble quantity of paper devoured by these printing- 
presses that the nineteenth century might well be 
styled the paper age. 

Gutenberg smiled at this flattering proof of the 
importance of his invention, but he drew his inter- 
locutor's attention to the fact that he was far from 
having had such lofty ideas. When he created 
printing, his ambition went no further than the im- 
itation of manuscripts, — to substitute for the books 
which copyists wrote out laboriously by hand 
in Gothic characters, pages composed of movable 
metallic letters, which by mechanical pressure on 
the paper would furnish a certain number of re- 
productions. Laurens Coster, the Dutch image- 
painter, preceded him, in this trade, by inventing 
movable type. Gutenberg took up the art of imi- 
tating manuscript at the point where Laurens 
Coster left it, and succeeded in making a practical 
industry of this manufacture. It was Scheffer who 
replaced Gothic letters by Roman characters, and 
gave books their present form, which has changed 
but little since their first origin. 

As Gutenberg uttered Scheffer's name, a person 
who had been standing near by stepped forward 
and joined in the conversation. 



134 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Scheffer thanked Gutenberg for his kindness in 
reminding Eusebius, a new-comer on those shores, 
of his share in the perfecting of printing. His ob- 
ject in adopting Roman characters was to make 
books more legible, and simplify the manufacture 
of type. 

Gutenberg readily accepted Scheffer's compli- 
ments and modest self-denial ; but he saw not far 
off John Faust, who, having at first held aloof, 
finally joined Scheffer. 

Gutenberg could not hide a movement of annoy- 
ance, which Faust instantly perceived, and ad- 
dressed him thus : — 

" Is it possible that after our departure from 
earth and the change in our destinies, you still 
retain your old grudge against me ? I thought that 
a stay in heaven did away with all the ill-feelings 
of earth." 

" I am wrong, no doubt," replied Gutenberg, 
" not to forgive you even yet for the wicked meas- 
ures of whicli you made use toward me, and 
which rendered my career so painful. But how can 
I forget your conduct, marked by such treachery 
and disloyalty ? Is it not true that when I had 
succeeded, thanks to the help of my friends Heil- 
mann, Dritzen, and Riff, in establishing a printing- 
office at the gates of Strasburg, I was treacherously 
driven forth by you, my deceitful sleeping partner, 
who merely advanced me money that you might 
have power to seize my invention later on, for non- 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 135 

payment of the amount lent ? Is it not true that 
after I was driven out, you made capital of the new 
trade in my place ? And lastly, is it not true that 
I was forced to quit Strasburg, utterly without re- 
sources, and to return, poor and discouraged, to 
Mayence, my native city, at the very time that you 
were reaping a rich return from my invention ? " 

" I have been bitterly punished, Master Guten- 
berg," replied Faust, " for my conduct to you ; 
for on going to Paris to sell the manuscripts which 
you printed at Strasburg, I was attacked by the 
plague, and died while all my affairs were most 
prosperous." 

" You were punished by Providence for your dis- 
loyal conduct to me," answered Gutenberg ; " but 
that did not prevent your son-in-law, Scheffer, from 
continuing to make books at Mayence, and selling 
them at very high prices ; for every one took them 
to be written by hand." 

" You forget, master," rejoined Scheffer, " that I 
was careful to proclaim you as the inventor of 
printing, in one of the books which I published at 
Mayence, and that had it not been for this, the 
world would never have known that you were the 
creator of that art." 

"True, my good Scheffer," said Gutenberg, 
somewhat mollified by the remembrance of that 
noble act, " I owe you a lively gratitude for such 
generous frankness, and that disposes me to forgive 
Faust for his wrongdoing." 



136 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Faust and Gutenberg were undoubtedly recon- 
ciled by this cordial explanation ; for the three 
shades at once flew away together. 

The historical character whom Eusebius next 
desired to know was he who revealed to the Old 
World the existence of a new continent, and, so to 
speak, doubled the extent of the habitable earth. 
We refer, of course, to Christopher Columbus. 
Eusebius went in search of him, and found him in 
the company of another person, whom we must 
admit he treated somewhat coldly. 

This was Americus Vespucius. Christopher 
Columbus could not forgive him for giving his name 
to the New World, to his own detriment. In vain 
did Vespucius declare his good faith, and repel all 
idea of wishing to lessen the glory of Columbus, 
when he allowed the new continent to be baptized 
in his name. Columbus could not forgive what he 
called a felony. 

Eusebius arrived in the midst of the lively con- 
versation that absorbed the two shades, and he 
listened curiously. 

" Was it proper for you," said Columbus, — " you, 
a mere ship's clerk, an inferior employee at trad- 
ing-ports ; you who had merely made a few voyages 
as agent, — to allow the name America to appear 
on the first maps of the New World, in place of 
Columbia?" 

" In the first place, dear Christopher," said the 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 137 

shade of Vespucius, " it was not I who circulated 
that name. It was without my knowledge that 
Hylacomilus the bookseller chose to speak of the 
New World thus in his account of my fourth voyage ; 
and you must know that the first map which 
appeared with the name America was not drawn 
until 1550, twenty . years after my death. But, 
besides," added Yespucius, who began to grow 
impatient under the reproaches of Columbus, u was 
there any real reason why your name should be 
given to the new continent ? When you set sail on 
the Dark Sea, with three-decked ships, regular 
cockle-shells, had you any thought of discovering 
a new world ? You were simply trying to find a 
short cut to the Indies. Starting from the fact 
that the earth is a sphere, you informed the eccle- 
siastical council assembled at the Robida Convent, 
that by sailing from east to west you must neces- 
sarily reach the Indies by water, — a route which 
would be much shorter than the old one. After a 
miraculous passage, due to the fine weather which 
continued to favor you, you reached land. But did 
you ever state that this land belonged to a world 
hitherto unknown ? No ; you always supposed it 
to be a part of the Indies, and you took the sea 
which washed its shores for the Japan Sea. The 
islands which you discovered were never during 
your lifetime described as other than a portion of 
India ; and the continent afterward discovered by 
Pizarro, Cortez, and other navigators was always 



138 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

held to belong to the Indies. For this reason the 
inhabitants of these new countries were called 
Indians, a name which they have always retained. 
Fernando Cortez was the first to recognize these 
regions as a new continent ; and when I had proved 
by my voyages the truth of his assertions, and de- 
scribed those new countries, people were led to give 
them my name." 

" True," replied Columbus, " I believed my whole 
life long that I had merely discovered a portion of 
the Indies, and the only purpose of my journey was 
to discover a maritime route to that country ; but 
is it not also true that the New World would never 
have been known had it not been for me ? " 

" Allow me to contradict you on that point, my 
dear Christopher. Undoubtedly you were the first 
to land upon an island of the New World ; but that 
same country was visited, three centuries before, 
by Norwegians ; and we are now well aware that 
a lively intercourse existed between the inhabi- 
tants of the northern part of the New World and 
the Norwegians. Moreover, when the Spanish con- 
querors invaded it, the centre of America (allow me 
to call it so) was inhabited by very civilized people, 
who had built splendid monuments, made roads, and 
possessed a navy. If you had not discovered the 
New World, rest assured that the Americans would 
have discovered Europe ; that is, the inhabitants of 
the New World would some fine day have landed 
on our continent. I have, however, no desire to 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 139 

contest your glory ; and I am the first to recog- 
nize the boldness of your conjectures and your 
courage in setting sail on unknown seas with such 
frail vessels. In return, forgive me for allowing 
my name to be given to the regions which you 
discovered." 

During this conversation Eusebius approached the 
two navigators. In excuse of his interruption, he 
gave Columbus an account of his centenary, cele- 
brated by Spain with great pomp at the Convent of 
Kobida in September, 1892. That he might also 
find favor with Vespucius, he insinuated that the 
hundredth anniversary of the death of the Floren- 
tine navigator might be celebrated likewise, in 1912, 
by his countrymen, eager to consecrate the memory 
of his glory. 

Vespucius received this flattering prospect with 
undisguised pleasure. 

Finally, taking advantage of his indirect intro- 
duction to Columbus, Eusebius ventured to ask him 
a question which has long been the subject of dis- 
sension among scholars, and has never been sat- 
isfactorily solved. It referred to the city where 
Columbus was born. We know, indeed, that six 
different cities dispute the honor of Homer's birth. 
Genoa, as well as the village of Cogoletto, in Italy, 
and Calvi, in Corsica, claim the glory of being the 
birthplace of Columbus. 

" I can satisfy every one," gayly replied the 
shade of Columbus. " I was not born at Genoa, at 



140 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Cogoletto, nor at Calvi. My mother brought me 
into the world on the open seas during a voyage 
from Genoa to Corsica. This, I suppose, will settle 
all disputes." 

At this jest the shade of Columbus began to 
laugh, and familiarly taking Vespucius as his fel- 
low-traveller, he flew away with him toward other 
shores. 

Having talked with the discoverer of America, > 
Eusebius wished to know the father of modern as- 
tronomy, John Kepler. We know that this as- 
tronomer discovered in the sixteenth century the 
laws of the movement of the planets around the 
sun, — laws which gave astronomy the wonderful 
precision which now marks it. 

Our new-comer made his way through the crowd 
of scientific celebrities who frequented that corner 
of heaven, and succeeded in finding Kepler. But 
the astronomer was not alone. He was accompa- 
nied by another person, who seemed trying to keep 
up a conversation with him, to which, however, 
Kepler paid little heed ; and all at once, without 
a word of warning, the ethereal shade of him 
who was John Kepler took flight, leaving his com- 
panion somewhat amazed at this abrupt departure. 

Eusebius took advantage of the movement of sur- 
prise made by Kepler's companion, and approached 
him, saying, — 

" It strikes me that Kepler took rather an odd 
leave of vou." 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 141 

"Yes," returned the person thus addressed ; " but 
it does not surprise me, for I know my illustrious 
pupil's ways." 

" Your pupil ? " asked Eusebius in astonishment. 

" Yes ; I am Moestlin, — or rather I was, when 
on earth, — Moestlin, Kepler's master ; and having 
followed him throughout the greater part of his 
existence, 1 am more competent than any one else 
to explain his character and actions. Such as he 
was on earth — that is to say, mystical, contempla- 
tive, and dreamy — he has remained in our new 
abode. I presume that he is at work on a sequel 
to his last book, ' Kepler's Dream.' In fact, he 
seems continually absorbed in celestial views ; and 
I often see him soar aloft with one stroke of his 
wings, as he just now did, to visit remote worlds, 
and doubtless to study constellations unknown to 
him. His existence on earth was so unhappy, so 
stormy, and his passionate love for planetary sci- 
ence met with such lamentable obstacles, that he 
never tires of the pleasure of giving free course here 
to his genius for mathematics and to the fancies of 
his brilliant imagination." 

u You say, Moestlin," replied the shade of Euse- 
bius, " that Kepler led an unhappy life on earth ? 
Still, the joy at having discovered the laws that 
govern the movement of the planets must have 
filled his soul with infinite content." 

" Of course ; but what price did he pay for that 
satisfaction ? Misfortune overtook him in his era- 



142 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

die, and never left him till he reached the tomb. 
No doubt you know the chief events in his life, and 
you can appreciate the truth of my words." 

" I know Kepler's life in a general way ; but I 
did not know that he had endured such serious 
misfortunes." 

" His misfortunes were such that I do not believe 
a man of genius was ever forced to submit to such 
painful trials. If you wish, dear new shade," added 
Moestlin, iC I will tell you the particulars of our as- 
tronomer's life, in which I myself played a part ; 
which enables me to be very truthful." 

At these words, Moestlin and Eusebius sought a 
retired spot where they would not be disturbed by 
tiresome conversations ; and Moestlin went on as 
follows : — 

" I told you that Kepler's misfortunes began in 
his childhood. In fact, had you visited, about 1580, 
the little inn in the Suabian village of Ermendingen, 
you might have seen a lad of twelve or thirteen 
going to and fro among the people at the tables, 
pouring out wine aud beer for them." 

" And was this little waiter Kepler ? " exclaimed 
Eusebius, overcome with surprise. 

" Just so. He who was destined to discover the 
laws of the universe spent his childhood in serving 
drinkers in a village inn." 

" And how was he rescued from that wretched 
position ? " 

" After employing him about the inn, he was sent 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 143 

to work in the fields; but he could not bear the 
fatigues of husbandry. It was then that having 
heard from public report, of the boy's extraordinary 
mathematical powers, I obtained his parents' leave 
to take him to the University of Tubingen, where I 
taught mathematics. I gave him lessons, and the 
Duke of Wiirtemberg paid his board. It was I who 
introduced him to the higher mathematics and to 
the new system of astronomy just originated by 
Copernicus, the famous Canon of Thorn, which up- 
set the old doctrine of the immobility of the earth. 
Young Kepler profited so well by my lessons that 
he was soon called to the chair of mathematics at 
Graetz, in Styria. 

" But the people of Styria were then divided into 
Protestants and Catholics. The latter being the 
more numerous and active, trouble was inevitable. 
In fact, toward the end of the year 1599 persecu- 
tion of the Protestants began. There were threats 
of driving them out of Graetz. Kepler decided to 
seek shelter in Hungary, where he could freely fol- 
low his own religious creed, and quietly devote him- 
self to the study of astronomy. The banished 
professor was allowed but forty-five days to sell or 
rent his estates. His property found no purchasers 
save at the lowest price ; so that from that moment 
Kepler was ruined. 

" The famous Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, 
who left Norway in consequence of the persecution 
of his enemies, had accepted from the German em- 



144 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

peror, Rudolph II., the post of keeper of the obser- 
vatory at Prague. Tycho Brahe, knowing Kepler's 
merits both as a mathematician and an observer, 
invited him to join him at Prague, and to share the 
advantages which he himself enjoyed. The invita- 
tion was accepted, and in 1600 Kepler went to 
Prague, where Tycho Brahe received him with 
marks of the sincerest friendship. 

" Tycho Brahe dying during the following year, 
Kepler inherited his position, and was made as- 
tronomer to the Emperor of Germany, Rudolph II. 
He established himself at the town of Linz, in 
Austria. 

" But in 1611 he had the misfortune to lose his 
wife, Barbara von Miiller, who became insane after 
the death of three of her children. 

" Private cares were soon added to the misfortunes 
which overwhelmed him. First, it was Emperor 
Rudolph, who was displeased that his licensed as- 
tronomer should give himself up to pure science, 
and devote to calculations time which he should 
have used for astrological prognostics. Next, it 
was a long list of nobles eager for horoscopes, who 
wearied him with their importunities. Their con- 
stant demands for astrologic predictions being ill- 
received, the courtiers of Rudolph II. were never 
tired of protesting against the large salary paid to 
Kepler. 

" But as a matter of fact, this salary with which 
Kepler was reproached was but very ill-paid. The 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 145 

arrears due to him in 1613 amounted to twelve 
thousand crowns. Even when he travelled in the 
emperor's train, his only means of support was his 
almanacs, which he sold himself or through others, 
and the few horoscopes which he consented to draw 
for the lords and gentlemen of the court." 

" What ! " exclaimed Eusebius, " was such the 
part which the caprices of fortune and the igno- 
rance of men assigned to one of the greatest gen- 
iuses of his time ? " 

" Kepler," resumed Moestlin, " continued to 
hold his office under Emperor Matthias, successor 
to Rudolph II. In 1643 he was summoned to the 
diet of Ratisbon to settle the corrections in the 
Gregorian Calendar. He pleaded the cause of 
Gregorian reform, and you know that he succeeded 
in gaining a victory for it. 

u It was a happy moment for him, a gleam of 
glory, to have attached his name to a reform which 
marked an epoch in the annals of civilization. But 
on his return from Ratisbon, his life was again 
vexed with trials, griefs, and misery. His salary 
as court astronomer was never paid ; and his 
means of existence, reduced to the sale of his al- 
manac, became more and more precarious. His 
present was constant privation, and his future a 
continual subject of distress. He was therefore 
forced to accept a professorship of mathematics 
offered him at the school of Linz. 

" But soon an unforeseen misfortune befell him. 

10 



146 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

His mother, accused of witchcraft, was thrown into 
prison at Stuttgart. All the charges usually made 
against the wretched victims of this terrible ac- 
cusation were brought against the old woman. 
She was said to have been taught the magic art by 
her aunt, who was burned at Weil as a witch. She 
was accused of having frequent intercourse with 
the devil ; of never shedding tears ; of destroying 
the pigs of the neighborhood, on whose backs she 
took midnight rides ; of never looking any one in 
the face ; and of having made the grave-digger 
agree to give her her husband's skull, to make a 
cup, which she proposed to present to her son, 
John Kepler. 

" This fearful trial went on for five years ; the 
wretched victim might die in prison. Kepler 
vainly exerted himself to the utmost on his mother's 
behalf. He implored the Duke of Wiirtemberg, in 
writing, to put a stop to this persecution. Unable 
to obtain any answer to his petitions, he left Linz 
in 1630, and went to Stuttgart. He did not suc- 
ceed in freeing his mother ; he only succeeded in 
hastening the result of the trial. 

" Had it not been for his interposition, and the 
regard inspired by his merits, Catherine would have 
been put to death ; for the charges brought against 
her would have been quite enough to kindle many 
other stakes, even in Protestant and learned Ger- 
many. Moreover, Catherine Kepler had aggra- 
vated her position by her haughty bearing toward 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 147 

the court. Outraged by the impertinent absurdity 
of the questions put to her by the judge, she became 
accuser, in her turn, and scornfully reproached that 
judge himself with, his ill-gotten riches. 

" Sentence was at last pronounced. It declared 
that Catherine was not to suffer physical, but only 
moral torture. 

" According to the decision of the judges, the 
executioner terrified the old woman by showing 
her, one by one, the various instruments of torture, 
— the rack, red-hot irons, thumb-screw, etc., at the 
same time explaining their use and the progressive 
increase of agony. Trials for witchcraft sometimes 
ended in this comminatory way. The prisoner, 
although acquitted, was made to feel the terror of 
torture. 

" Kepler, on his return to Linz, was unable to 
resume his professorship. The charge of sorcery 
brought against his mother, and the long trial that 
followed, had left the most unfavorable impressions 
against him. His enemies overwhelmed him pub- 
licly with the injurious epithet of i the witch's son.' 
Such was the power of prejudice and the ignorance 
of that age that he could not leave his house with- 
out being exposed to the gravest insult. He was 
therefore obliged to leave Linz. 

" Without any means of subsistence, what was to 
become of the luckless Kepler, who had several 
children by his second marriage ? A few friends 
obtained for him the necessary means to leave the 



148 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

city. Twenty years before, his life was troubled, in 
Styria, by religious wars ; and be was obliged to 
give up his chair at Graetz. Now, hatred of so- 
called sorcery drove him from Austria. On leav- 
ing Linz he wrote bitterly to one of his friends : 
; Where shall I take refuge now ? Am I to seek 
out a province already laid waste, or one of those 
which will erelong be devastated ? ' 

" He next entered, as official astronomer, the court 
of the Duke of Wallenstein, who had become a 
prince of the empire, after having long been a pow- 
erful and dreaded adventurer. But parted from his 
wife and children, whom he had left in Austria, he 
could not accustom himself to the noisy, lawless 
life of a camp. Moreover, although of gentle and 
easy-going temper, he had too strong a sense of his 
own superiority to bend readily to the caprices of 
an imperious and haughty master, who desired to 
make his will prevail even in heaven. 

" Duke Wallenstein soon saw that Kepler had but 
little faith in the language of the planets, and that 
in his predictions he w T as far too indifferent to 
flatter his master's desires. Like Philip of Mace- 
don of old, he would fain himself have dictated the 
oracles of fate. Not finding Kepler as submissive 
as he required, he dismissed him and replaced him 
by an Italian astronomer, Zeno, who could make 
the planets speak in terms more suited to the ideas 
of princes. 

" To procure payment of his back salary, Kepler 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 149 

made frequent journeys on horseback between Linz 
and Ratisbon, and passed the rest of his life in use- 
less exertions. At last, worn out by fatigue and 
sorrow, he died of want, perhaps of hunger, in an 
inn at Ratisbon, at the age of fifty-eight. 

" Few men, you see, ever led a life at once more 
laborious and more full of sorrow and trouble. 
How many disappointments, changes of dwelling, 
journeys, and heartrending solicitudes ! And all 
to md in naught but misery ! Grief and exhaus- 
tion shortened his existence ; and he died, leaving 
to his wife and children nothing but the glory of his 



name." 



Moestiin's tale had been a long one. Our two 
friends hoped that Kepler might return, after their 
conversation, from his excursion to distant worlds ; 
but he did not appear, and Eusebius was forced to 
leave his kind informant without seeing him who 
made himself so illustrious by giving to astronomy 
laws which govern the movements of the planets in 
our solar system. 

Newton had the glory of continuing Kepler's 
work. We know that the great English astronomer 
generalized Kepler's laws, by demonstrating the 
fact of universal gravitation, and proving that the 
force which causes the fall of bodies to the surface 
of the earth is the same which makes the planets 
revolve around the sun, the satellites around the 
planets, and consequently, the moon around the 



150 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

earth. Thus completing Kepler's labors, Newton 
explained the mechanism of the world by general, 
absolute laws, which allow of no exception. Grasp- 
ing the astronomic and mathematic data w T on for 
science by the labors of his predecessors, and thanks 
to a new process of calculation which he himself 
invented, infinitesimal calculus, he demonstrated 
the existence of a universal principle, attraction, 
which governs all matter, from the invisible atom 
to the vast globes which gravitate in the skies, and 
he established the law in harmony with w f hich that 
attraction is exerted. Where confusion reigned, he 
introduced harmony. He restored the universe to 
unity ; he revealed the grandeur and beauty of its 
mechanism, and far from diminishing the Supreme 
Author of Nature, he placed Him so high, he showed 
such power in Him, that he compelled humanity to 
admire and respect Him. 

Having seen Kepler, Eusebius next eagerly 
desired to be brought in contact with Newton. 

He had no difficulty in recognizing him ; for he 
was described as usually holding aloof from others, 
busied with the studies and calculations which he 
began on earth. 

The shade of the English mathematician had, 
indeed, retired to a lonely corner of heaven, and 
was absorbed in his usual meditations. Eusebius, 
not without some hesitation, decided to address him. 

He began by excusing himself for disturbing the 
scholar for a moment in his loftv meditations. 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 151 

He knew all the details of his magnificent labors, 
and merely wished to inquire as to the authenticity 
of an anecdote which had been current for two 
centuries, founded on statements which seem 
genuine, for it is quoted by a French writer on 
science, a man of much authority, J. B. Biot. The 
reader will guess that we refer to the tradition that 
the idea of universal gravitation was suggested to 
Isaac Newton by seeing an apple fall from the tree. 
It is said that being seated in the garden of the 
farm at Woolsthorpe, which he cultivated in his 
youth at his mother's request, an apple dropped 
from a tree, and that this trifling incident led his 
mind to the cause of the movement of the planets 
around the sun and the satellites around the planets. 
" Why," he is supposed to have thought, " should 
not the power which attracts bodies toward the 
earth be the same as that which forces the moon to 
revolve about our globe ? " Such, according to 
popular tradition, was the origin of the calculations 
by which Newton proved the identity of weight and 
of universal gravity. 

Newton smiled at the question asked by Eusebius. 

" The anecdote to which you allude, amiable and 
courteous shade," he answered, " is a charming one, 
and its only fault is that it is not true. It w r as 
current in my time ; for it was told for the first 
time by Pemberton, the publisher of my works, and 
I contradicted it, in so far as the thing deserved. 
You can understand that when I lived in the coun- 



152 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

try, at Woolsthorpe, in my early youth, I was not 
yet possessed of the process which I afterward in- 
vented, — I mean infinitesimal calculus, which was 
indispensable to the handling of a question as 
difficult as the identification of universal gravita- 
tion and weight." 

Eusebius did not seem clearly to comprehend 
this last consideration. This induced the great 
mathematician to enter upon details of a nature to 
enlighten the mind of his interlocutor. 

" The idea of identifying weight with universal 
gravitation does not belong to me personally," said 
he. " Copernicus foresaw it. Kepler compared the 
sun to a magnet acting on the planets to hold them 
in their orbits, and he found that their rate of revo- 
lution varies very nearly in inverse ratio to the 
square of their distance from the sun. 

" Bouillaud, in a work published in 1645, formu- 
lated this law more distinctly yet, saying : ' The 
force of the sun acting on the planets is in inverse 
ratio to the square of their distance.' 

" Borelly, in his work on the ' Satellites of 
Jupiter,' plainly showed how the planets may be 
held and suspended in space around the sun, as 
well as satellites around their planets, by the action 
of a central power. Thus, before the date of my la- 
bors, the honor of the first idea of the assimilation of 
weight to the planetary movements was attributed to 
Borelly. Still the principle was not mathematically 
demonstrated. Now, it is not enough, in science, 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 153 

for an idea to be suggested ; its reality must be 
demonstrated by figures. In the absence of this 
proof, the opinion can only be accepted as a 
conjecture. 

" The general problem of universal gravitation 
had therefore been pointed out and studied before 
my time by astronomers and physicists ; but it had 
not been proved. I then took up the idea, subjected 
it to calculation, and solved the question with 
mathematical precision." 

" May I venture to ask you, dear and great 
master," said Eusebius, " by just what means you 
reached that solution ? " 

" I was struck," replied Newton, " by the fact 
that weight is just as potent in the lowest spots on 
earth as on the loftiest mountains, and I was led to 
inquire if it did not extend to the moon, — that is 
to say, whether it might not be the same power 
that caused heavy bodies to fall to the earth and 
that held the moon in its orbit. Following my in- 
dications, I thought that, this first view being cor- 
rect, the planets which move about the sun must 
also be maintained in their orbits by the action of 
the same planet. i If a general principle, which I 
will call weight, exists,' said I to myself, ' the planets 
must have different rates of speed at different points 
of their ofbits, for the reason that all pointy of the 
ellipse are situated at different distances from the 
sun.' Now, Kepler had established a relation be- 
tween the rates of the revolutions of the planets 



154 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

and their distances from the sun. We might there- 
fore conclude from this the law of the growth and 
decrease of speed, and, consequently, that of solar 
weight. Starting from Kepler's law, I found, in 
fact, that the energy of the solar weight decreases 
in proportion to the square of the distance. The 
calculus gave me the key to the system of the 
world ! Having determined this law, I desired to 
apply it to the moon, and did so as follows : 
knowing how far a body falls toward the earth's 
surface in the first second of its fall, I could calcu- 
late how far the moon would fall in the same time, 
by diminishing the weight according to the law of 
the square of the distance. That element obtained, 
I could deduce from it the speed of the circular mo- 
tion of the moon, or the length of its revolution; 
and if this rate of speed agreed with that given by 
observation, we must conclude that the earth ex- 
erted an attractive influence over our satellite. To 
make these calculations, I had to know the exact 
measure of the earth's radius, and the distance from 
the earth to the moon, expressed in fractions of that 
measure. Unfortunately, at that time we had no 
exact measure of the earth's dimensions. The de- 
gree of the meridian was estimated at sixty English 
miles (297,251 French feet). From this I inferred 
that the earth's radius was 17,081,230 f&et, and I 
based my calculations on that figure. In this way 
I found a value one sixth greater than observation 
gives, for the power that holds the moon in its or- 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 155 

bit. This result of my calculations, varying so 
much from observation, puzzled me and led me to 
doubt the value of my hypothesis. ' I am mis- 
taken,' said I ; ' weight does not attract the moon 
in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. 
There is some other cause which escapes me, and 
which modifies, for the earth and moon, the law 
which I have discovered.' I therefore abandoned 
the matter, and devoted myself to mathematical and 
optical research. It was not till thirteen years 
later that chance gave me the explanation of my 
error, and clearly proved that my first calculations 
were correct." 

" Chance ? " asked Eusebius, in surprise. 

" You shall hear. One day in the month of June, 
1682, being in the hall of the Royal Society of Lon- 
don, while waiting for the opening of the meeting, 
I heard those about me talking of the new measure- 
ment of the meridian just made in France by the 
astronomer Picard, and of the peculiar care which he 
had taken in the work. Picard's operations made 
a serious alteration in the length of the meridian, 
and consequently an important rectification in the 
measure of the earth hitherto adopted. I was greatly 
startled. Was the error in my calculations relating 
to universal gravitation wholly due to popular ig- 
norance of the true dimensions of the earth ? I at 
once noted Picard's figures, and hurriedly returned 
home, to resume my calculations of 1660, with the 
new estimate of the meridian. As I went on with 



156 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

my task, the agreement that I sought became more 
and more clearly manifest. Soon it was so evident 
that, overcome by the deepest emotion, I was un- 
able to go on with my calculations, and had to beg 
one of my colleagues in the Royal Societj^ to finish 
them for me. 

" There was now no possibility of a doubt ; the 
analogy of weight as manifested on the earth's sur- 
face, and of the attractive power which balances the 
centrifugal force of the moon in order to retain it 
in its orbit, was now as plain as possible. I in- 
stantly saw unrolled before me, as in a rapid vision, 
all the consequences of this discovery. I saw the 
entire universe subject to the laws of gravitation, and 
understood at a glance the true system of the world. 
This discovery opened so superb a field to astronomy 
and physics that I was stunned, and it was some 
time before I regained my senses. My hands trem- 
bled, and I was dizzy." 

" You were," answered Eusebius, " like Archi- 
medes, who, when he had unveiled the trick of the 
maker of King Hiero's gold crown, by taking the 
weight of that crown submerged in water, ran half 
naked and like a madman through the streets of 
Syracuse, crying, c Eureka ! ' " 

Having thus fully satisfied his questioner's curi- 
osity, Newton signified, by a polite gesture, that he 
desired to resume his meditations. Eusebius ac- 
cordingly left him, greatly edified in regard to the 
legend of the apple and Woolsthorpe garden, and 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 157 

happy to have had a serious conversation with one 
of the men of genius who have done most to honor 
earthly humanity. 

The steam-engine is the great instrument of the 
renovation of trade in the nineteenth century. Be- 
fore that period men had no powerful motor which 
could be handled easily. Wind-power, water-falls, 
springs, human power, and horse-power were the 
only means of mechanical energy of which any 
practical use was made. The steam-engine replaced 
these insufficient agents, with incalculable advan- 
tages over all of them. During the early years of 
this century manufactories and mills made use of 
the steam-engine, and, thanks to its aid, multiplied 
their products in proportions hitherto unknown. 
This powerful motor distributed power to the differ- 
ent w r ork-rooms, adapting it to a great variety of 
tools, now setting in motion enormous masses, and 
now performing the most delicate tasks, here lifting 
huge hammers, there winding threads of linen, 
cotton, or silk. By its economical application 
in all sorts of manufactures the steam-engine 
revolutionized trade, and brought within the reach 
of all products until then reserved for the favorites 
of fortune alone. It improved dress, lodging, and 
food, and created industries never before thought of. 

From manufactories and mills, the steam-engine 
passed to rivers and seas. It was introduced into 
boats and ships, which parted the waters of streams 
or the waves of the sea without the aid of oars or 



158 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

sails, and triumphed, as if in play, over contrary 
currents and winds. 

The same machine was soon applied to transpor- 
tation by land ; and steam was substituted for 
draught-horses. Locomotives were seen, pouring 
forth clouds of smoke, cinders, and steam as they 
passed, drawing long trains heavily loaded, moving 
on iron rails. 

The steam-engine, therefore, was the soul of trade 
in the nineteenth century. 

Eusebius, who, while on earth, was possessed of 
wide scientific knowledge, desired to make the ac- 
quaintance of the famous English machinist who 
made the steam-engine a universal motor. This 
machinist was James Watt, who, by perfecting 
Newcomen's imperfect machine, — that is, by sub- 
stituting steam condensed in a separate vessel for 
the injection of cold water into the interior of the 
steam cylinder, — made the machine now in use ; and 
thanks to the many improvements which he intro- 
duced later, made a motor at once powerful and 
economical, which was rapidly introduced into all 
the mechanical industries of Europe. 

Eusebius accordingly inquired for James Watt ; 
and he was pointed out to him, with the remark 
that he was with his iyiseparable companion. 

This somewhat puzzled Eusebius ; but he soon 
had an explanation. The shade of James Watt was 
in company with another inhabitant of the celestial 
Eldorado, and they seemed to be united by a most 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 159 

cordial affection. Thus, when Eusebius introduced 
himself to him who was once James Watt, the lat- 
ter answered him in these words, — 

" I accept your praises, dear new shade, but I 
beg of you to transfer the greater part to my 
friend." 

And as Eusebius gazed curiously at the person 
mentioned by Watt, the latter added, — 

" You have before you one who was Denis Papin, 
the man of genius to whom we owe the discovery 
of the principle of the steam-engine. As Denis 
Papin was one of the most unfortunate men of 
his age, a true martyr to science, I desire that jus- 
tice, which was refused him on the imperfect sphere 
which was for a time his dwelling, should be fully 
done him in the blest abode where all truths are 
made known, where all wrongs are repaired, where 
rewards are bestowed. Therefore I never leave 
Denis Papin without comforting him for his mis- 
fortunes, congratulating him on his constancy and 
courage during the sad years of his earthly life, 
and proclaiming him before all the true inventor 
of the steam-engine, which his successors marvel- 
lously improved, but whose first idea was wholly 
due to him." 

The shade of Denis Papin smiled at this ardent 
declaration from one who so gloried in doing him 
homage, and addressing Eusebius, said, — 

" You see, by these generous words, how true it 
is that genius is always allied to goodness. James 



160 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

"Watt exaggerates my merits to diminish his own ; 
he makes of his own glory a mantle for mine ; he 
makes me an aureole from his own halo, for I can- 
not deny that my machine was but a rough sketch, 
while his was a masterpiece." 

" I exaggerate nothing, dear shade," replied 
James Watt. " You say your machine was only a 
rough sketch ? I suppose you refer to the plain 
cylinder and piston, containing a layer of water at 
the base, which was reduced to steam by means of 
a furnace, and was chilled by interior radiation. 
Simple as this arrangement was, it raised consider- 
able weights, by means of a cord fastened to the 
handle of the piston ; but no one ever thought of 
offering it as a machine for every-day practical use. 
It was only a means of demonstration, invented by 
you, to show the fact of the mechanical power ex- 
isting in the elastic force of aqueous vapor. I do 
not, therefore, refer to that demonstratory appara- 
tus, but to the really practical machine which you 
constructed, and in which steam, directed into a 
cylinder full of water, itself connected with the 
water of a river or pond, exerted a pressure on the 
water contained in the cylinder, and expelled the 
liquid, which fell back upon the buckets of a hy- 
draulic wheel and set it in motion. It was actually 
a water-mill worked by steam, and the paddle- 
shaft of the hydraulic wheel, as it turned, formed a 
motor which could be used to work various tools." 

" No doubt," said Eusebius, addressing Papin, 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 161 

" it was the same apparatus that you adapted to the 
boat which you transported from Germany to Eng- 
land, when the boatmen of the Weser stopped you 
at the mouth of that river, and upon your insisting 
on continuing your journey up the Weser, stove 
your boat to pieces." 

" Yes," replied Papin, " that was the machinery 
which was to turn the wheels of my boat ; and the 
stupid fury of the sailors destroyed, with my boat, 
all my hopes." 

" The blow which you received on that fatal day, 
dear friend and master," said James Watt, " was 
the beginning of all the misfortunes which you en- 
dured throughout the rest of your existence ; the 
cause of your misery, your sorrows, and your lonely 
death. But your grief should now be assuaged by 
the thought that you left your country, forsak- 
ing fortune, position, future, and friends, in order 
to remain true to your religious convictions, and 
that you need not conform to the commands of the 
Edict of Nantes. You were a martyr to the religion 
of your fathers ; and the trials which you underwent 
to escape the persecution of the Catholics gained 
for you immediate admission to the blest abode 
where you now dwell. The affection that I feel for 
you is due as much to the memory of your suffer- 
ings, nobly borne for the sake of the Protestant 
religion, as to your scientific genius." 

With these words the two shades vanished, ex- 
changing tokens of mutual affection, and leaving 

11 



1G2 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Eusebius fully convinced that equity, gratitude, and 
disinterested friendship are the native virtues of the 
happy inhabitants of the astronomic paradise. 

He was still more convinced of this truth on lis- 
tening to the conversation just then going on 
between two other celestials, whom he readily recog- 
nized bv their words as the English engineer, George 
Stephenson, and the French engineer, Marc Seguin. 

Every one knows that the locomotive that drags 
our trains over iron rails owes its creation to two 
distinct inventions, equally beautiful and original : 
the tubular boiler, which furnishes vast quantities 
of steam in an instant; and the steam blast, — that 
is, the jet of steam forced from the boiler into the 
flue of the chimney, which produces a tremendous 
draught, an enormous demand upon the gases of 
the fire-box, and thus increases, in extraordinary 
proportions, the quantity of steam produced by the 
generator. 

These two inventions contributed equally to cre- 
ate the locomotive, for they complete each other 
marvellously well. One of these arrangements 
alone would not be enough to attain the desired 
end ; but their union furnished the solution of the 
problem of the speed of locomotives. 

But which invention did more toward solving the 
problem, — the steam blast or the tubular boiler ? 
This is a question which has always divided scien- 
tists, or rather nations, — the French maintaining 
that Marc Seguin's tubular boiler played the larger 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 163 

part in the creation of the locomotive ; the English 
asserting that the supremacy belongs to George 
Stephenson's steam blast. 

Now, do you know what the shades of Stephenson 
and Marc Seguin were saying when Eusebius over- 
heard their talk ? Stephenson maintained that the 
French engineer's invention was far more impor- 
tant than his own ; while Marc Seguin insisted that 
all the glory belonged to Stephenson, for his inven- 
tion of the steam blast, which would have alone 
sufficed to provide the strong draught necessary for 
the production of large quantities of steam in the 
boiler. 

The elect of heaven therefore held views the 
reverse of those prevalent on earth. They carried 
justice so far as to efface themselves in honor of a 
rival. 

From this delightful self-sacrifice, Eusebius 
learned what supreme virtues are the privilege of 
the inhabitants of ether. 

Continuing his review of the scholars who have 
left the most enduring impress on the history of 
humanity, Eusebius wished to know, after the in- 
ventors of the locomotive, the inventors of steam 
navigation. 

Three shades were chatting together, not far 
away. Eusebius approached them, and listening to 
their words, discovered that he had before him 
the three discoverers of navigation by steam; 



164 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

namely, the Frenchman, Claude de Jouffroy, the 
American, John Fitch, and the American, Robert 
Fulton. 

To understand why we mention the names of 
three men as the creators of navigation by steam, 
we must know the somewhat complex history of 
steam navigation. It will therefore be necessary to 
give a rapid summary of the origin and progress of 
that discovery, before coming to the conversation 
which Eusebius was so fortunate as to have with 
the three great shades. 

James Watt having, about 1770, made consider- 
able improvements in Newcomen's steam-engine, 
that machine was used, as a motive power, in many 
workshops and manufactories throughout Europe. 
Its application on board boats, in place of oars, was 
clearly indicated. Therefore, in both worlds 
machinists and constructors were making every 
effort to apply James Watt's steam-engine in 
navigation. 

However, there were great difficulties in the way, 
if we may judge by the long interval which passed 
between the invention of Watt's steam-engine, and 
its final application to navigation on rivers and 
streams, which was not until 1807, on Fulton's 
boat, the " Clermont," which ran from New York 
to Albany. 

The history of science has recorded with scrupu- 
lous care the names of the various machinists who 
worked together to create steam navigation, from 
its origin to its final success. 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 165 

A Frenchman, Marquis Claude de Jouffroy 
d'Abbans, an officer in the King's troops, was the 
first to make a boat move by steam power. 

The propeller used at the outset by the Marquis 
de Jouffroy to transmit the motive power of steam 
to the water was a sort of jointed oar, opening to 
strike the liquid, and closing again, to permit the 
boat to advance. It was what Claude de Jouffroy 
called palmated oars, because they resembled the 
feet of aquatic birds. But he soon gave up this 
elaborate system. 

July 15, 1783, he launched on the Saone, at 
Lyons, a huge boat, moved by paddle-wheels, them- 
selves impelled by a steam-engine of Watt's pattern, 
which was made at Lyons, in 1780, in the shops of 
Jean Brothers. 

The steam-engine which worked the paddle- 
wheels was of considerable size, the boiler being a 
foot and nine inches in diameter and the piston 
having a stroke of five feet. The boat containing 
this engine was also very large. It was no less 
than 140 feet long by 16 feet wide. The wheels 
were a foot and six inches in diameter, the pad- 
dles six feet long ; and they plunged two feet deep 
into the river. The boat's draught of water was 
three feet. 

The Marquis de Jouffroy made the trial-trips of 
this boat on the Saone at Lyons ; and it plied, 
against the current, for several months, as far as 
lie Barbe. 



166 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

July 15, 1783, the boat was set in motion, in the 
presence of ten thousand curious spectators and 
before the members of the Lyons Academy of 
Science and Letters. It moved with the greatest 
ease, going up the Saone against the stream. The 
members of the Lyons Academy drew up a report, 
giving the particulars of this splendid experiment. 

We can scarcely understand why, after such a 
result, De Jouffroy failed to obtain at once the 
license which he requested, for thirty years, to 
establish a service of steamboats on the Saone. 

We must attribute to Minister Calonne the un- 
qualified refusal returned to De Jouffroy's request. 
This minister carelessly refused to regard the Lyons 
experiment as sufficient proof of the originality of 
De Jouffroy's discovery. He considered it his duty 
to submit the petition to the Academy of Science 
at Paris. This latter body, exaggerating the im- 
portance of the task, demanded, through Perier and 
Borda, that the inventor should repeat his experi- 
ment upon the Seine, at Paris. But to have a new 
boat built, in order to submit it to the academic 
Areopagus enthroned on the banks of the Seine, 
was beyond the means of the inventor, who had 
spent his last cent in the construction of his huge 
boat and his steam-engine. De Jouffroy therefore 
could only send a small model of the Lyons boat to 
the commissioners of the Academy ; which was 
not considered sufficient by those terrible judges. 

Jouffroy's big boat continued to navigate the 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 167 

SaSne for some sixteen months, and was then 
abandoned. 

Just about this time almost all the nobility of 
France emigrated. The Marquis de Jouffroy went 
abroad in 1790. He afterward took service in the 
armies of the Empire, and gave no further heed to 
steam navigation. He took it up again, however, 
in 1815, after the return of the Bourbons. But the 
invention had then made vast progress in other 
hands than his ; still, it can never be denied that 
he was the first person in the world who built and 
navigated a steamboat upon a river. 

Here let us note certain attempts, of no great 
import, made in Scotland in 1788 by two native 
engineers, Taylor and Simington, to navigate a 
pleasure-boat on the Port Clyde Canal by means of 
an imperfect steam-engine. 

In 1787 John Fitch, a Philadelphia builder, 
launched a little boat upon the Delaware, in which 
wdieels attached to a horizontal bar running length- 
wise of the planks were moved by steam. The 
engine was built, with great trouble, by native 
blacksmiths. 

In 1789 Fitch navigated a larger boat on the 
same stream, propelled by a good Watt's engine ; 
and this boat made a very long trip. Franklin and 
the learned Rittenhouse were present at the experi- 
ment, and they planned a line of steam transports 
to run between Philadelphia and Trenton. 

The difficulty of constructing good steam-engines 



108 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

cut short Fitch's scheme. Not finding the hoped- 
for encouragement in Philadelphia, and deserted by 
those who had thus far supported him, he decided 
to go to Europe. In 1792 he set sail for France, 
and landed at Lorient. 

He had known, in Philadelphia, Brissot, who was 
living in America with the Quakers. He sought 
out Brissot in Paris, where he had now become a 
member of the National Convention, and asked his 
help, which was not refused. 

Escorted by Brissot, he appeared at a session of 
the National Convention, somewhat ostentatiously 
holding in his hand the flag of the American 
Republic, with which the Governor of the State of 
Pennsylvania decorated his boat after its trial-trip 
by steam on the waters of the Delaware, in 1789. 

The Convention received the American ship- 
builder with due honor, and saluted the United 
States flag with cheers. 

But Brissot, the Girondist, died on the scaffold 
Oct. 31, 1793 ; and with him, Fitch lost his sole 
support. 

Unable to prolong his stay in France, Fitch 
resolved to return home ; but his destitution was 
such that he had not the means to pay his passage, 
and he was glad to get the cost of his journey from 
the United States Consul at Lorient. 

However, he was forgotten in Philadelphia. He 
made vain efforts to re-establish his undertaking ; 
no one would listen to him, and in despair he com- 
mitted suicide. 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 169 

In his will he left his manuscripts, plans, and the 
sketches for his machines to the Philosophical Soci- 
ety of Pennsylvania, that some one might carry on 
his work, — " if he have the courage," he added 
bitterly in this his last testament. 

At Paris, in 1803, a journeyman gold-beater, 
Charles Dallery, tried to build a steamboat, to be 
moved, not by wheels, but by a screw, a propulsive 
motor then in its infancy ; but he could not manage 
to build the steam-engine, and in a fit of despair he 
broke his boat to pieces with his own hands. 

Meantime Robert Fulton, an American engineer, 
built on those same banks of the Seine a steam- 
boat combining all the requirements necessary for 
navigation ; and it moved triumphantly over the 
very waters where the fragments of the boat shat- 
tered by the unhappy Dallery still floated. 

The son of poor Irish emigrants, at first appren- 
ticed to a Philadelphia jeweller, young Fulton, en- 
dowed with some talent for drawing and painting, 
soon supported himself by his pencil. At the 
age of twenty, he was a miniature-painter in 
Philadelphia. In 1786 he went to Europe, landing 
in England, where, his taste for mechanics becom- 
ing more and more pronounced, he gave up the 
profession of painter for that of engineer. 

During his fifteen years' stay in Europe (in Eng- 
land and France) he won distinction by a large 
number of mechanical inventions of varied order. 
To him we owe the invention of torpedoes, intended 



170 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

to blow up ships by a submarine explosion, — a ter- 
rible weapon which, being again taken up in our 
day by the navies of all nations, produced a com- 
plete revolution in the construction and armament 
of military fleets, both for offensive and defensive 
purposes. 

The problem of navigation by steam, which Ful- 
ton began to study in 1796, was another object of 
his efforts. 

Owing to the deep study of the causes which had 
prevented the success of the previous attempts made 
by his many rivals, Fulton contrived to succeed 
where so many others failed. In the month of 
August, 1803, a steamboat built by him journeyed 
up the Seine, as we have already stated, in the very 
midst of Paris. 

He submitted this boat to the examination of the 
directors of the Conservatory of Arts and Manufac- 
tures, as well as to the Academy of Sciences at 
Paris. 

The Academy was very far, as has often been 
stated, from despising or ignoring the importance 
of the invention of steamboats. It named a com- 
mission, made up of scientific men of high rank 
(Bougainville, Abbe Bossut, Carnot, and Perier), 
whose duty it was to visit Fulton's steamboat, 
which was stationed on the Seine. Several mem- 
bers of the Institute, among whom were Abbe 
Bossut, Carnot, De Brouy, and Yolney, went on 
board of her on the 20th of Thermidor, 1803. 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 171 

If the invention of steamboats was not recognized 
in France, was scorned and rejected, it was — his- 
tory is compelled to admit — owing to the Emperor 
Napoleon I. 

Having refused to examine into torpedoes, — 
invented, as we said, by Robert Fulton, and 
tested by him at Brest, — Napoleon refused to re- 
ceive Fulton, whom he treated as a " charlatan, 
whose only desire was to make money." 

Napoleon was at this time preparing for a descent 
on England. Fulton offered to build steamboats 
for him, to transport an army to Dover, instead of 
scattering them in the small flatboats, each carry- 
ing one cannon, then in process of construction at 
Boulogne. We know that the foolish idea of gun- 
boats failed miserably, after several years' delay and 
enormous expenditure. 

Repulsed in France, Fulton went to England, 
where his ideas were no better received by the 
Admiralty, who looked with horror on an inven- 
tion so full of menace for English war-ships and 
commercial vessels. Fulton, wearied out, returned 
to America. 

Thanks to the financial support of a former 
French consul, Livingstone, he managed to build 
at New York a splendid boat, the " Clermont," 
which, on April 10, 1807, made a most successful 
trial-trip up the Hudson, from New York to 
Albany. 

From that moment the steam-engine took pos- 



172 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

session of boats navigating American rivers and 
lakes. It was soon to be introduced into ships and 
to plough all seas. 

Thus we see how long a series of labors was 
required to realize the application of steam power 
to navigation. 

Eusebius was fully acquainted with the history of 
navigation by steam, and with the relative parts 
played by Claude de Jouffroy, John Fitch, and 
Robert Fulton. He was therefore not surprised 
to find these three great shades together. 

After excusing himself for addressing them, 
Eusebius said that he supposed, no doubt, like 
Papin and James Watt, they had met to exchange 
recollections, to congratulate one another on 
their respective triumphs, and to forget their past 
rivalries. 

But at the word " rivalries," he was interrupted by 
the shade of Jouffroy, who reminded him that Fitch, 
Fulton, and himself were never rivals ; that they 
worked independently, without any knowledge of 
each other, at a common task, at different times ; 
and that it was by the Supreme will that they had 
successively devoted their lives to the same study. 

Eusebius considered this latter assertion, seem- 
ingly unable to understand it. Then John Fitch 
said, — 

" New-comer to our Empyrean, you cannot yet be 
initiated into all the joys which fall to the lot of the 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 173 

dwellers in this abode. One of the most precious is 
that we know the reason of the various events of 
civilization, politics, war, science, and the arts, 
which occur on earth, and which seem inexplica- 
ble, or contrary to the unfailing justice of Provi- 
dence. You have a proof of this in the fate allotted 
to us on earth. We were all cruelly treated 
by destiny ; and in spite of our constant devotion 
to searching out what would be for the general 
welfare, we were scorned or persecuted. Our mis- 
fortunes seem to have been contrary to the justice 
and eternal wisdom which rule over all worlds. 
And yet it was the Divine will that successively 
combined the periods of our three existences, to 
attain a great humanitarian end." 

And as Eusebius seemed anxious for further ex- 
planation, the shade of Jouffroy went on : — 

" I do not know whether or not you lived before 
the introduction of steam-engines on board boats and 
ships ; but if you had seen what seafaring then was, 
you would have been struck by the dangers and 
vast inconveniences which it presented. In ancient 
times, when men were reduced to oars and sails, 
they could navigate only along shore, never going 
out of sight of land ; and when it was known that a 
Roman fleet, composed of hundreds of triremes and 
thousands of rowers, had crossed the sea from Syra- 
cuse to the coast of Africa, there was a universal 
cry of surprise and admiration. It was not until 
the thirteenth century that the compass gave its 



174 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

first impulse to the art of navigation. The mag- 
netic needle, combined with observation of the 
Pole Star, pointed out the way to the navigator, 
who thenceforth ventured to trust himself on the 
open sea, and to undertake quite long voyages on 
the ocean or inland seas. It was by this means — 
that is, thanks to the compass — that Christopher 
Columbus was enabled to navigate without swerv- 
ing from his route, westward, until he found a new 
land. But how imperfect, how full of dangers and 
cares, navigation still was, limited to the compass 
and observation of the North Star ! Contrary winds 
held vessels in port indefinitely. In the open sea, 
when there was a calm, ships were forced to lie 
still for lack of wind to swell the sails. Their 
stay in the same latitude seemed eternal, exposing 
the crew to lack of provisions, to die of hunger and 
thirst. To tack or beat to windward was the 
forced expedient of every sea-voyage. It was so 
hard to decide beforehand on the length of a pas- 
sage that traders could make no calculation as to 
the date for the return of a vessel. The voyage 
from America to Europe and back, was a daring 
experiment, seldom enough ventured. How many 
human existences have been devoured by the Mi- 
notaur ocean ! How many ships perished with all 
on board during the long period that followed the 
discovery of the magnetic needle, down to our age ! 
Thus all eagerly longed for the time when sailors 
should possess some means of propelling their ships 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 175 

which should not be at the mercy of the caprice of 
the winds. 

" Well," continued the shade of Jouffroy, " here 
God's hand is revealed. Steam applied to the 
propulsion of vessels, in place of sails and oars, 
was to afford navigators the dreamed-of desidera- 
tum. By using steam to move ships, there would 
be no time lost in waiting for a favorable wind, in 
tacking or in beating to windward. Navigation 
would be continuous, incessant ; it would mock at 
wind and storm. Sea-voyages would become both 
safe and swift, and trade would receive a tremen- 
dous impulse. But to produce steam navigation 
was a task replete with difficulties and dangers. 
The idea of putting furnaces and a boiler 
into wooden ships aroused universal fear. All 
dreaded the explosion of the engine, and fire on 
board. Contrary interests, consequent on prosper- 
ous sea-traffic, created obstacles of another sort, 
over which it was not easy to triumph. The suc- 
cessive action of the three generous men was, 
therefore, none too much to insure victory. And 
those men were certainly doomed to the trials, the 
sufferings, the martyrdom to which every inventor, 
every creator of a new work, is condemned on 
earth. I was the first victim," added Jouffroy's 
shade ; " for my long watches, my incessant toil? 
my courage, were unavailing to insure success, and 
I had the sorrow of growing old, unknown, while 
my invention grew and was perfected without me 
and remote from me." 



176 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" I was the second victim," added John Fitch ; 
" for after a life wholly devoted to working for the 
welfare and safety of sailors, I received in return 
only the indifference or the hatred of mankind. 
Rejected by all, ruined, discouraged, I was forced 
to destroy a life whose sufferings and regrets I 
could no longer endure.'' 

" My fate was scarcely happier," said Fulton, 
" although I finally succeeded in my undertaking. 
But what fatigues and agonies did I not endure 
during my long stay in Europe ! Overwhelmed 
with mortifications, repulsed by all, I was glad to 
return and offer to my own country the new indus- 
try rejected by old Europe." 

" Thus, you see," said Jouffroy, " that three 
eager and devoted men were none too many to 
accomplish this humanitarian task ; and that it was 
indeed with a providential purpose that we handed 
down this mission, one to the other, ourselves 
unconscious of it, but blindly obeying a premedi- 
tated plan, which was to insure a precious benefit to 
mankind." 

" Sea-voyages, once so dangerous," added Fulton, 
" are now perfectly safe. Transatlantic steamers 
make the journey from one world to another in a 
week, while in my time it took two months, and 
there is now nothing to be feared from wind or storm. 
Learn from this instance, new-comer to our happy 
shores, that the secret designs of Providence in 
regard to earthly events are here revealed." 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 177 

Eusebius, who had, indeed, much to learn con- 
cerning the conditions of the new existence upon 
which he had entered, thanked the three learned 
and kindly shades, and took leave of them to con- 
tinue his visits to famous men made happy in the 
astronomic paradise. 

If the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph 
of the steam-engine, which produced an entire social 
and industrial change in both worlds, electricity is 
now beginning to supersede steam ; and it is prob- 
able that the twentieth century will see the electric 
current take the place of the elastic power of 
steam, and used as a motor in factories and shops; 
to transport travellers and merchandise over steel 
rails, instead of horses in carriages on ordinary 
roads ; to propel boats and ships ; to light houses, 
public buildings, and streets, in place of the reagents 
which are the base of the present chemical trade ; 
to extract metals from their minerals ; to dye and 
print stuffs ; to dress leather ; in fact, by a marvel- 
lous phenomenon unsuspected until now, to trans- 
port natural forces, and utilize from a distance the 
mechanical power resident in water-falls and the 
wind. 

The electric current, which will be the great 
industrial power of the twentieth century, was dis- 
covered in the beginning of this century, — that 
is, about 1800. Insignificant at first, so that it 
was limited to static effects, produced by rubbing- 
machines, electricity took a sudden start when it 

12 



178 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

assumed the form of a current. The discovery of 
the electric current is due to Galvani and Volta. 
Eusebius was therefore very impatient to know the 
paradisal shades of those two great men. 

He had no trouble in finding them, and in finding 
them together, for they seldom parted. By listen- 
ing to their conversation, he gathered the curious 
topic of their talk, which referred to the circum- 
stances that led to the discovery of the electric 
current. 

4 ' No one," said Volta, " admires more than I do 
the genius and particularly the perseverance dis- 
played by you during the long series of years which 
you devoted to the study of animal electricity, which 
I called metallic electricity. To you is surely due 
the great discovery of electricity in motion, which 
you placed in the body of animals and which I placed 
in the mineral world. But, call it by what name 
you please, you were the first to point out the 
existence of the electric current, — a form very 
unlike purely static electricity, furnished by fric- 
tional machines ; and you described certain of its 
characteristics. But allow me to suggest that it 
was not your wisdom alone which led to your 
success, but it was particularly the result of a series 
of fortunate chances." 

" It was not mere chance that led to my dis- 
covery," quickly replied Galvani ; " for you must 
confess that I had done much to help that chance 
by my twenty years' studies." 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 179 

" Agreed," replied the shade of Volta ; " but you 
will not deny that the fundamental fact upon 
which all your research was based, was revealed to 
you by a wholly accidental circumstance. Is not it 
true that your wife, Lucia Galvani, was the first to 
observe the phenomenon of the contraction of a 
frog's body under the influence of electricity, and 
that this phenomenon occurred in your presence 
under singular circumstances ? One of your pupils 
was drawing sparks by friction from an electric 
machine, while another was engaged close by that 
same electric machine in preparing a frog for the 
anatomical studies which you had for some time 
been making with regard to the nervous irritability 
of those animals. It was the instantaneous reunion 
of those two acts that caused the contraction of the 
frog's body." 

i4 That is true," answered Galvani's shade. " In 
order to study the nervous irritability of frogs, I 
had prepared one of those animals, as I frequently 
did, by dividing with the scissors the lower limbs 
from the upper part of the body, retaining only the 
two nerves of the thigh, which, being left intact, 
united by this frail link the upper and lower limbs. 
At that instant another observer, a friend of mine, 
was making some experiments of his own in regard 
to the spark of the electric machine. The frog 
being prepared, I laid it, without any special pur- 
pose, on the wooden board used as a support for 
the electric machine ; then I left the laboratory, and 



180 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

went to another part of the house. Now, it hap- 
pened that one of my pupils, whom I had directed 
to finish the dissection and separation of the crural 
nerves of the frog, touched those nerves with the 
point of his scalpel. Instantly he saw with surprise 
that the animal's lower limbs were contracted as if 
seized with an attack of lockjaw. All those present 
were astounded. Among them was my wife, Lucia 
Galvani. While the others eagerly strove to repro- 
duce the singular phenomenon which had so 
amazed them, my wife thought she saw that the 
contractions occurred only at the precise moment 
when a spark was drawn from the electric machine 
close by. In fact, when a spark was drawn from 
the machine, and at the same time the tip of a 
scalpel was applied to the nerve of the frog, lying 
at some distance from the apparatus though it was, 
the animal's body was convulsed ; and these con- 
vulsions ceased to appear w T hen the glass plate of 
the electric machine was no longer rotated. Sur- 
prised at this fact, my wife hastened to tell me of 
it ; for I was just then engaged elsewhere. I ran to 
verify the phenomenon of which she informed me, 
and could not but acknowledge its reality. When 
I put the frog on the support of the machine, and 
approached the tip of a scalpel to one of its crural 
nerves, while another person drew the spark from 
the machine, the animal's lower limbs were seized 
with violent contractions." 

" The phenomenon which surprised you so much," 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 181 

said Volta, " was very simple. It was produced by 
the back stroke, — that is to say, the electric shock 
which may be felt by animals at a long distance 
from the spot where the lightning strikes. When 
a cloud is charged with positive electricity, for 
instance, it acts bv influence on all bodies situated 
on the surface of the earth ; it decomposes their 
natural electricity, and attracts their negative 
electricity. But if the lightning finally strikes, 
and thus releases the free electricitv in the cloud, 

%/ 7 

it ceases to influence bodies placed in its sphere of 
action. These latter then suddenly return to a 
state of neutral electricity. This abrupt return to 
a neutral state, this sudden recomposition of two 
electricities, when it acts through the bodies of men 
or animals, produces in them a shock, a violent and 
sometimes fatal commotion ; this is the back stroke. 
It was a phenomenon of this kind which occurred 
in your experiment. Placed in the vicinity of an 
electric machine in an active state, and being thus 
within its sphere of attraction, the body of the frog 
was electrified by influence, and continued in that 
electric state so long as the conductor of the 
machine was charged with positive electricity. But 
when they came, by drawing the spark, to strip the 
conductor of the machine suddenly of all its free 
electricity, the recomposition of the two electricities 
took place at the same time through the animal's 
body. This rapid movement of the electricity 
determined a commotion in the limbs of the frog, 



182 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

because the body of a frog recently killed always 
undergoes these motions of muscular contract- 
ability, under the influence of electricity in motion. 
A fresh-killed frog is, in fact, a capital electro- 
scope ; it reveals the presence of the faintest traces 
of electricity in a free state." 

" I saw perfectly," replied Galvani, " that the 
phenomenon of the frog's contraction might be 
explained by the back stroke, but I did not feel 
satisfied to stop at that explanation." 

" Very luckily," hastily replied Volta ; " for had 
you been content with that interpretation, you 
would not have carried your investigations any 
further. You would have admired the electric 
sensibility of the frog's body, and the service which 
it might render as an electroscope, but you would 
have stopped there. It was because you did not 
choose to accept that theory, which was nevertheless 
the true one, that you imagined you were on an 
absolutely new road, which would lead to a total 
revolution in physics and physiology. But let us 
pass over this point, and come to your greatest 
discovery, that of the electric current. You will 
not deny the powerful intervention of chance on 
this occasion." 

"Yes," said Galvani, "on Sept. 20, 1786, in 
order to study the influence of atmospheric electri- 
city on the motions of the frog, under a sky exempt 
from electricity, I prepared one of those animals as 
usual, and having passed a copper hook through its 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 183 

spinal marrow, I hung it on the iron railing which 
ran along the terrace of my house. I had already 
tried the same experiment several times, with no 
unusual result. Toward the end of the day, 
wearied by the length and futility of my observa- 
tions, I seized the copper hook imbedded in the 
frog's spinal marrow, and applied it to the iron 
railing, which I rubbed rapidly, by means of the 
hook, in order to produce a closer contact between 
the two metals. At once the animal's lower limbs 
underwent violent shocks and contractions, which 
were repeated at every fresh contact of the 
copper hook with the iron railing. And yet there 
was nothing to indicate the presence of free elec- 
tricity in the atmosphere. This observation was of 
great importance, inasmuch as it showed that 
atmospheric electricity had nothing to do with the 
phenomenon of the frog's contractions, which were 
independent of all exterior cause, and undoubtedly 
proceeded from some force innate in the frog. To 
set at rest all doubt on this head, I repeated the 
same experiment in my laboratory, merely substi- 
tuting a sheet of polished iron for the iron railing. 
I hung a freshly prepared frog on an iron rod, and 
passed a small copper hook through the mass of the 
lumbar muscles and the fascia? of the spinal marrow. 
As soon as the copper hook touched the iron, the 
contractions took place, just as I had witnessed 
them on the terrace. This latter observation was 
fundamental. By this experiment I entered into 



184 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

possession of an absolutely new order of facts. 
Hitherto I had sought the cause of the frog's 
muscular contractions in some external electric 
influence. Here atmospheric electricity played no 
part, and the fact was reduced to these two simple 
terms, — a metal arch in contact with the frog's 
nerves at one of its extremities, and with its mus- 
cular system at the other extremity. It was by 
dwelling on these facts that I believed I had proved 
beyond a doubt the existence of a form of electricity 
peculiar to the living organism, and established 
that the body of animals is an organic Leyden jar, 
that positive electricity circulates from muscles to 
nerves and from nerves to muscles, and that when 
we unite muscles and nerves by a metal arch, we 
produce muscular contraction, by establishing a 
communication between the two electricities. I 
thus put beyond a doubt the existence of an elec- 
tric current in the body of animals." 

" I have never accepted," returned Volta, " your 
animal electricity ; but be its nature what it may, it 
was an electric current, and you thus discovered 
that particular form assumed by electricity. It is 
none the less true, however, that you owed this latter 
discovery quite as much as the first one to chance." 

Somewhat piqued by these remarks, Galvani 
replied as follows : — 

" I am, illustrious and revered shade, one of the 
greatest admirers of your genius, and declare that 
the instrument which you invented, and to which 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 185 

your name was given in just homage, is one of the 
most precious which ever came from the hands of a 
physicist ; but if I grant you that chance played a 
certain part in my discovery of the electric current, 
you must admit, on your side, that it was owing to 
a series of errors that you were led to invent that 
wonderful apparatus." 

" What errors," asked Yolta, not without a shade 
of bitterness, u can you point out, as having led to 
my discovery ? " 

" Your contemporaries," replied Galvani, " took 
care to make them manifest. You gave to the 
learned world a description of the instrument which 
you call a pile, in a letter which you addressed, 
March 20, 1800, to the President of the Royal 
Society of London. Now, in this letter you only 
speak of this new instrument as suited to excite 
shocks in the organs of animals. You call it an 
organic Leyden jar, possessing the property of 
recharging itself after each emission of electricity. 
Misled by your principle of contact, whose fallacy 
was lately so well proved, you failed to note any of 
the many facts which overthrow your theory. You 
did not observe the rapid decrease that takes place 
in the intensity of the effects produced by your 
machine after the first moments of vigorous action, 
a decrease which is due to the diminution of the 
chemical effects going on between the metals and 
acid liquids composing the pile. How could you 
fail to be struck by the decrease in intensity of the 



186 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

pile which takes place after a certain period of 
activity, and how was it that you were not led to 
seek the cause of this decrease ? You said nothing, 
in your memoir, of the profound alteration under- 
gone by one of the metals in the couple. You did 
not notice the saline efflorescence which forms 
around the metal disks, and which consists of 
sulphate of zinc, produced by the dissolution of the 
metal by the acidulated water. Indeed, in a pile 
which has been used for any length of time, all the 
zinc plates are worn away, and lose considerable of 
their weight, in consequence of the dissolving of the 
metal in the acidulated liquid. . The copper plates, 
on the contrary, remain intact. How was it that 
you were not struck by this fact, which was so self- 
evident to the observer ? Neither did you remark 
the singular fact, which it was almost impossible to 
overlook, of chemical decompositions, with the 
production of gas, which took place during the 
action of the pile. You repeated many times 
the experiment of the interrupted circuit with ma- 
chines of one hundred and twenty couples, commu- 
nication being established by means of a smooth 
copper plate submerged in a solution of sea salt, 
and you noticed neither the formation of bubbles 
of gas on the plate in contact with the negative pole, 
nor the oxidation of the plate at the positive pole. 
More yet, you made a battery consisting of a series 
of cups arranged in a circle of two hundred and 
forty-one couples ; you left the elements in place 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 187 

for a very long time, now opening and now closing 
the circuit, and you did not observe the escape of 
hydrogen which occurs during the movement of the 
pile. This strange theory of contact — a sort of 
physical abstraction, now utterly forgotten — was 
long held in high repute ; but you were shown in 
your own lifetime that it was wholly inexact. In 
fact, to demonstrate the principle — that is, the 
development of electricity by the mere contact of 
two metals — you took a metal rod composed of two 
bits of copper and zinc soldered together, and hold- 
ing it in your fingers by the zinc end, you applied 
the copper end to the upper plate of an electro- 
scope-condenser of gold leaf. At the same time 
you raised the upper plate of the electroscope by 
its insulating handle, and the gold leaf of the 
instrument at once deviated from the line, owing to 
the effect of the electricity existing on the lower 
plate. This experiment served, according to you, 
to prove the presence of free electricity in every 
metal plate composed of two different metals. But 
to destroy all the value of this experiment, it is 
only necessary to show that the escape of electricity 
revealed by the electroscope under these circum- 
stances is produced solely by the chemical action 
going on between the operator's finger, always 
soaked in some acid liquid, or acid perspiration, and 
zinc, a most oxidable metal. In fact, this experi- 
ment succeeds only when the plate of the electro- 
scope is touched with a finger previously moistened. 



188 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

If instead of touching the metal plate with the finger, 
you touch it with a bit of dry wood ; if instead of 
grasping the voltaic couple by the zinc end, you 
take it by the copper end, that metal being less 
oxidable than zinc ; lastly, if instead of working in 
the air, you try this experiment in a vacuum, or in 
a gas other than oxygen, such as carbonic acid gas 
or nitrogen, — in these various cases the electro- 
scope ceases to show the presence of electricity. The 
experiment upon which you based so many hopes 
was, therefore, but ill observed. Carried out under 
strict precautions, it proves exactly the opposite, — 
that is to say, the absence of all electricity in a 
plate made of two different metals. The objections 
to your theory of contact were, however, stated as 
soon as you made known your hypothesis. The 
chemist Fabroni, in your own country, and Gauthe- 
rot, in France, destroyed it, by showing that all the 
effects of the pile are produced by the chemical 
action of the sulphuric acid upon the zinc ; which 
proved that your explanation rested on facts but ill- 
noted." 

" In short, you claim," replied Yolta, " that the 
invention of the electric pile was merely the result 
of a series of errors on my part. I will not under- 
take to argue the question fully, but I would like to 
remind you of the vast consequences of the dis- 
covery of the apparatus which sets the electric 
current in action. Do you know, either in inani- 
mate or living nature, any agent to be compared with 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 189 

the electric current, either for the power or the 
originality of its effects ? If the two ends of the 
pile are joined, these effects, as varied as they are 
remarkable, are obtained. Between these terminal 
wires, brought very close together, a flame appears 
which, when produced under special conditions, is 
to be likened only to the full blaze of the sun. If 
the two poles of the pile are connected by a fine 
wire conductor, so that the wire interposed merely 
serves for the flow of the electricity, we have a 
powerful centre of heat. The most stubborn metals 
may be fused by this means : iron, platinum ; non- 
metallic bodies, such as silica or aluminum, com- 
monly supposed to be absolutely infusible ; even 
diamonds ; in a word, without exception, almost 
every substance belonging to the mineral kingdom. 
The electric current travels to any distance with 
incalculable speed. It acts a thousand miles from 
its starting-point, and no obstacle is strong enough 
to keep it from travelling any distance. Its action 
may be suspended and renewed, in the twinkling of 
an eye, at will and with a wave of the hand. The 
electric current decomposes composite substances, 
such as Avater, and all other composites are subject 
to the same decomposition through which water 
passes under the influence of the voltaic current. 
Metal oxides are reduced to their elements ; the 
oxygen escapes at the zinc pole, the metal is 
deposited at the other pole. Saline composites are 
also destroyed by the effect of the same force. The 



190 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

electric current has enabled chemists to reveal the 
nature of countless composites. Potash being sub- 
jected to its action, that alkali is decomposed. All 
basic oxides are, in turn, divided into two parts, 
— into oxygen and a peculiar metal. The true 
nature of alkaline and earthy bases was thus 
revealed ; and all other chemical substances being 
successively subjected to this powerful means of 
analysis, unknown metals were discovered. The 
electric current, which produces such wonderful 
physical and chemical results, also produces impor- 
tant physiological results. By circulating through 
our organs, it reproduces that peculiar commotion 
which it is the peculiarity of innervation to excite, 
and rouses our dormant faculties. The electric 
current revives in the corpse of an animal the 
organic actions destroyed by death. By sending it 
tli rough the pectoral muscles of a fresh-killed 
animal, the mechanical act of respiration is repro- 
duced in the dead body. Criminals who have been 
executed have been subjected to the same order of 
experiment, and performed all the phenomena of 
organic life ; the hands moved and lifted weights, 
the body rose and sat erect, and the facial muscles 
went through such fearful contortions that the 
witnesses of the singular scene fled in terror. The 
electric current is, therefore, at once a source of 
light and heat, an agent of motive power, a power- 
ful means of chemical action, and an instrument for 
various physiological phenomena. To produce heat 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 191 

and light, create motive powers, restore bodies 
to their original elements, and combine them 
together, — such are the effects of the electric 
current, whose unique characteristic is that it is 
universal in its applications. By its aid we confine 
and condense in one and the same point a continual 
source of electricity, that is to say, of a physical 
agent equal to caloric in the number and impor- 
tance of its attributes ; and we can employ, by 
turns, its various effects, — that is to say, heat, 
light, mechanical action, or physiological effects. 
We can, at will, make use of any one of these 
effects, to the exclusion of the others ; and all, 
separately or simultaneously, meekly obey our 
orders. It is a submissive servant, who sets forth, 
hastens to obey, and pauses at a sign." 

" I do not deny," answered Galvani, " the im- 
mense importance of the apparatus which sprang 
from your industrious hands ; and the effects which 
you enumerate, some of which were known in my 
day, excited a just admiration. I merely wished to 
remind you, and I hope that you will excuse the 
slight lack of courtesy which my long dissertation 
on physics may show, that you were led to invent 
the electric pile through a chain of facts but half 
observed." 

During the conversation which we have repeated, 
another celestial had approached our two friends, 
and had caught their last words. This was the 
English physicist, Michael Faraday. 



192 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" You just now acknowledged with much frank- 
ness," he said to Galvani, " how much accident had 
to do with }^our discovery of the electric current. 
I would add that it is to the same cause that we 
owe the discoveries which have so marvellously 
increased the effects and applications of the electric 
current. The great discovery of the action of the 
electric current upon magnets was certainly the re- 
sult of chance. Men had almost exhausted the study 
of the effects of an open electric current, — that is 
to say, when the two poles of the electric pile are 
removed, one from the other, for a certain space, 
so as to produce an electric discharge between 
those two poles, with the production of a luminous 
arch or a spark ; but no one had paid any heed to 
the closed electric current, — that is, where the 
electricity flows continuously without any outward 
manifestation. It was thought to be deprived of 
all action under these conditions. Chance led to 
the discovery of electro-magnetism, at the hands of 
a Danish physicist, Oersted, a professor at the Uni- 
versity of Copenhagen. In 1820, during one of 
his lectures on physics, Oersted was showing his 
audience the calorific power of the electric pile, by 
heating a fine platinum wire joining the two poles, 
red-hot by the effect of the current. A magnetic 
needle accidentally lay some distance away from 
the pile. Now, as soon as the pile began to act, — 
that is, as soon as the current was closed, — the 
magnetic needle began to fluctuate in a singular 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 193 

fashion, which greatly surprised the spectators. 
They believed, indeed, that just because the two 
poles of the pile were joined, therefore the current 
was destroyed, and it could no longer produce any 
result. The fact, however, could not be denied, 
since every one saw that the magnetic needle was 
moved, at a distance, by a closed current. When 
the students had gone, Oersted made haste to re- 
peat the experiment, which had thus, as it were, 
performed itself, before the eyes of the public. He 
again set the pile in action, and held a movable 
magnetic needle near it. This needle moved most 
vigorously whenever it approached the wire uniting 
the two poles of the pile. 

" This discovery," continued Faraday, " was soon 
vastly extended. Oersted had created electro-mag- 
netism, Ampere established its mathematical and 
physical laws, and Arago discovered the fundamen- 
tal fact of the power of closed currents to magnetize 
iron and steel. Here again it was chance that 
revealed this important phenomenon. On repeat- 
ing Oersted's experiment, Arago observed that the 
uniting wire of the pile attracted iron filings just 
as iron might a magnet, but that it did not attract 
the filings of other metals. The current, there- 
fore, gave rise to the magnetic force in iron ; and 
Arago proved that this force disappeared when the 
current was interrupted. By winding the wire unit- 
ing the two poles of a screw-shaped pile around an 
iron or steel rod, the rod became a magnet, — that 

13 



194 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

is, it attracted iron, and this magnetization ceased 
as soon as the current ceased to circulate through 
the wire. On this temporary magnetization of iron 
by the Voltaic current, depends the electro-me- 
chanic principle of the electric telegraph, and of a 
whole series of inventions of similar order. 

" Lastly," continued Faraday, " it was by con- 
tinuing the study of similar phenomena that I dis- 
covered the induced currents, and constructed the 
first magneto-electric machine, known as the ma- 
chine de Pixii, which was destined later on, thanks 
to wonderful improvements, to increase the power 
of the electric current a hundred fold, and to lead, 
a few years later, to the appearance of superb in- 
struments, known as electric dynamos, such as are 
now used for electric lighting, as well as for the 
transportation to a distance of natural or artificial 
forces. And all this, I repeat, arose by chance, 
which led Oersted to discover the action of the 
closed current upon the magnetic needle, which 
fully confirms the statement which you just now 
maintained ; namely, the large part which chance 
has played in the discovery of the electric current 
and its effects." 

Eusebius, who had followed the close of this 
learned conversation with great attention, as he 
had the first part of it, now ventured to join in the 
discourse of these Elysian shades ; and after excus- 
ing himself for taking part in their scholarly de- 
bate, he asked what conclusion was to be drawn 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 195 

from the fact that chance had so often presided 
over discoveries relating to the electric current 
and its uses. 

" What conclusion, dear novice ? " answered the 
shade of Faraday. " Why, the conclusion that what 
we call chance on earth, because of the moral blind- 
ness peculiar to humanity, does not exist ; but is a 
means peculiar to Providence, which is inaccessible 
to the feeble understanding of men. As for us, — 
that is, the inhabitants of the celestial regions, who 
are in possession of a part of the secrets of the 
physical world, — we do not admit that there is such 
a thing as chance. We regard it as the premedi- 
tated will of God. You have had a striking proof 
of this in the so-called chances or errors accompa- 
nying the discovery of the electric current, which 
were really only events foreordained by the Divine 
will for the purpose of putting earthly humanity in 
possession of a new power, and of one resource the 
more for the welfare and activity of man." 

With these words the discussion closed, and each 
of the ethereal shades withdrew. 

In continuation of his visits to the celebrated 
men of the nineteenth century, Eusebius desired to 
make the acquaintance of the two Montgolfiers, 
the inventors of aerostation, — an art which in his 
opinion would one day put humanity in possession 
of a fresh benefit of immense compass, that is, 
aerial navigation. The shades of the two inventors 
of aerostation, the two Montgolfiers, were pointed 



196 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

out to him as they chatted together; and he ad- 
dressed them, begging them to tell him under what 
circumstances they conceived the idea of making 
balloons. 

" Nothing simpler," replied the shade of Stephen 
Montgolfier; "the idea occurred to me during a 
moment of revery and repose. I was on the terrace 
of my paper-mill at Annonay, and I amused myself 
by watching the clouds move across the sky. I 
admired their strange shapes, their rapid changes, 
their brilliant colors ; and it suddenly occurred to 
me to make some artificial clouds, which, in imita- 
tion of natural clouds, would rise into the upper 
regions of the air. Close beside me I saw the 
smoke from the chimneys of our factory rise and 
float in the air exactly like clouds. Putting these 
two facts together, it seemed to me not impossible 
to make artificial clouds similar to those found in 
Nature. I made small globes of paper, and filled 
them with smoke by burning damp straw. Smoke, 
like aqueous vapor of which clouds are made, is 
lighter than air. It would therefore rise above the 
earth, bearing with it my light paper balloons. I 
tried the experiment, and it succeeded. From that 
time forth I often amused myself by making little 
balloons of white, pink, and silver paper, which 
I launched into the air. I delighted in doing, with 
my weak hands, what Nature with her grandeur 
and majesty achieved. The people of the region 
round about, seeing my sports, called my little 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 197 

balloons montgolfieres. But my brother Joseph, 
the clever one of the family, who had studied 
scientific things at Paris, corrected my explanation. 
He substituted a scientific theory for the poetry 
of my clouds. He showed me that if my little 
spheres rose, it was because I filled them with 
hot air, lighter than the outside air. To prove 
this to me, he heated my little paper balloons over 
a charcoal stove which produced no smoke ; and the 
balloons thus heated flew as high as those which I 
filled with smoke. I was mistaken in my expla- 
nation of the phenomenon ; but I had invented a 
new art, that of aerostation." 

Eusebius was curious to know the opinion of the 
two Montgolfiers in regard to the steering of bal- 
loons. He turned to Joseph Montgolfier, and asked 
him whether he thought that it would ever be 
possible to make air-ships move in a given direction. 

" Reflect, dear new shade," replied Joseph Mont- 
golfier, " that if balloons rise and float in the 
atmosphere, it is because the gas which they con- 
tain is much lighter than air ; which signifies, from 
a mechanical point of view, that the dynamic power 
of the air is considerably greater than that of the 
gas contained in the air-ship. If these two forces 
were equal, we might strive to oppose one to the 
other ; but the difference between the mechanical 
force of hydrogen gas and that of air is too pro- 
nounced, pure hydrogen being fourteen times 
lighter than air. Therefore the faintest current of 



198 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

air prevents the advance of an air-ship filled with hy- 
drogen gas in a direction opposite to that current." 

" But," replied Eusebius, " an air-ship might 
be provided with a motor which would make up 
for the lack of power in the hydrogen gas, to 
fight against the force of the wind. Kept in equi- 
librium in the air by the specific lightness of the 
hydrogen gas, the air-ship might be urged forward 
by the motor." 

" Yes," answered Joseph Montgolfier ; " that 
would require a motor at tire same time very 
strong, in order to resist the impetus of the wind, 
and very light, in order not to diminish the 
ascensional power of the air-ship. But where are 
we to find such a motor, both strong and very light, 
— for power and lightweight scarcely go together? 
This providential motor has for a hundred years 
been vainly sought for. I have kept myself 
informed of all the efforts made in this direction 
during the past century in different parts of the 
globe, — for we have, you know, the ability to see 
and know all that occurs on the planet which we 
once inhabited. Well, every motor tried has 
proved incapable of overcoming the resistance of 
the air." 

" Still," objected Eusebius, " the electric motor 
gave excellent results." 

" You do not refer, I suppose, to the accumulators ; 
for their enormous weight could not be sustained 
by a balloon." 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 199 

" No ; I mean the motor worked by a bichromate 
of potash Voltaic pile." 

"That has, indeed, been tried by many aeronauts 
during the last twenty years. Unfortunately, the 
action of the pile is quickly exhausted. At the 
end of a few hours it ceases. The source of the 
electricity is dried up, and the motor has no more 
power. The aeronaut must either descend or 
abandon himself to the mercy of the wind. This 
is the reason that all the experiments which made 
so much talk were limited to an aerial stroll of two 
or three hours, after which the balloons were 
obliged to return to earth. And yet the electric 
motor was the agent on which most hope was 
based." 

u That is, unfortunately, true; but what do you 
say to the system of heavier than air ? Is it not 
possible, with a wheel or screw endued with 
sufficient speed, to act upon the air in such a way 
as to keep the air-ship in equilibrium, or to move it 
in a given direction ?" 

Stephen Montgolfier smiled at these words, but 
at once became serious again. 

" I would not, dear novice," said he, " discourage 
any one ; but when I think of the strange expecta- 
tion of raising a heavy body into the air, I cannot 
help smiling. What a tremendous rate of speed 
would be required for such a reaction on a gas like 
air, which escapes under pressure, and reacts little 
if at all ! Moreover, hundreds of machines answer- 



200 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

ing to this system have been tried, for a half- 
centuiy back, and none has succeeded. This is the 
best argument against the paradoxal system of 
' heavier than the air.' " 

" The body of a bird," replied Eusebius, " is very 
heavy, with its bones, flesh, and cartilage ; and yet 
it floats in the air, merely by the action of its 
pectoral muscles. Here, }^ou must admit, we have 
a fine instance of heavier than air. May not art 
attain what Nature produces daily?" 

" When the bird is dead," rejoined Montgolfier, 
" can you, by any means whatsoever, make it fly ? 
There must therefore be in the bird's pectoral mus- 
cles some peculiar element which our machines can- 
not reproduce. That element is vital force. Find 
a motor as powerful as that which active life bestows 
on the body of a bird, and you will realize in your 
air-ships the system of ' heavier than the air.' But 
Nature has not revealed to you her secret." 

" Yet many efforts have been made," replied 
Eusebius, " to imitate the flight of birds ; during 
these latter years physicists, not destitute of merit, 
have made artificial birds^ in which an electric 
motor moves vast surfaces imitating a bird's wing. 
We are told that these machines float in the air." 

" Yes," said Montgolfier, " such is the claim put 
forth by certain inventors ; but hitherto all has 
been reduced to empty promises. Besides, what 
duration could such a machine have, with an 
electric motor whose action is so soon exhausted ? 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 201 

To fall from a height with more security than was 
afforded by the old parachute, — which I have often 
seen in use, and which brought an aeronaut to the 
ground apart from his balloon, — to this must be 
reduced the use of the artificial bird, so long an- 
nounced but never appearing." 

Eusebius was somewhat crestfallen at finding 
that the inventors of aerostation had so little con- 
fidence in the future advance of their own dis- 
covery ; and he left them to visit other inventors. 

The art that interested him most, on account of 
his recent progress, and concerning which he de- 
sired some special information, was photography, 
so humble at its birth, so marvellous in its results. 
He was told of the presence, not far distant, of the 
three inventors of photography, Joseph Niepce, 
Daguerre, and Fox Talbot, who were in the habit 
of meeting to talk over the progress of their art. 
He had no difficulty in finding the group ; and with- 
out sharing in it, he listened to their conversation. 

It bore upon the extraordinary advance made dur- 
ing fifty years in the invention which owed its birth 
to them. Every one knows that Joseph Niepce, of 
Chalons on the Sachie, was the first inventor of 
photography on metal ; that the Parisian painter, 
Daguerre, was his partner and assistant; and that 
Fox Talbot, the Englishman, made the first photo- 
graph on paper. 

The three friends had just taken a look at the 
earth, to see the photographic work done in the 



202 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

open air by countless amateurs of different lands, 
and they could not recover from their surprise. 

" What do you think, dear Daguerre," asked the 
shade of Niepce of his former partner, " of the ad- 
vance in the art which originated with us ? Do 
you remember how, after numberless attempts, we 
succeeded — in what ? In getting a reproduction 
of some natural object upon a silvered plate. But 
each operation furnished only one copy ; a fresh 
operation and a fresh metallic plate was required 
for every picture. Now a single plate supplies 
thousands of pictures." 

" I obtained the same result," eagerly exclaimed 
the shade of Fox Talbot ; " for by inventing pho- 
tography on paper, I furnished the means of ob- 
taining from a negative picture as many positive 
pictures as were required." 

" We know it," answered Daguerre, " and we 
have no idea of attributing to any one but you the 
merits of that great conquest of art, although one 
of our countrymen, the over-modest Bayard, is said 
to have made photographs on paper at the same 
time that you did. But a discovery to which you 
will not lay claim, as it occurred half a century 
later than you, is instantaneous photography, with 
gelatino-bromide of silver, which crowns a long 
series of successive improvements. The miracu- 
lous results of instantaneous photography are now 
the pride of artists and the delight of amateurs." 

" Yes," said Talbot, " in the rapid glance which 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 203 

we took of earth, I saw extraordinary things. An 
amateur paused for an instant on a sidewalk ; he 
caught sight of a young woman whose portrait he 
wanted. To get it, he drew out his watch. But 
this watch was not a watch ; it was a minute 
photographic apparatus. Knowing the distance 
between himself and the young woman, he held 
the machine towards the model for a second. Then 
he withdrew, no one having any suspicion of what 
he had done, and went home to develop at his 
leisure the picture taken in so strange a way." 

" Like you," said Daguerre, " I saw amateurs 
working in the open air, pointing at a building or a 
passer-by a camera concealed under a waistcoat, or 
even stuck in a cravat, like a pin. The amateur, 
without stopping for an instant, uncovered the lens 
of a liliputian machine, then went his way with 
the desired picture. I saw others who seemed to 
be looking at some one or something through an 
opera-glass which they held to their eyes. But 
this opera-glass was not an opera-glass ; it was a 
camera, which they used to take a picture." 

" If you want another queer case of instanta- 
neous photography," said Niepce, " hear this. I 
was watching a balloon ascension in the Champ de 
Mars, at Paris, when I saw a parachute cut loose 
from the balloon, and drop rapidly to the earth. 
Now what do you think the parachute contained 
in its descent ? A camera. The parachute having 
reached the ground, a photographer, who was wait- 



204 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

ing, hastily picked it up. Then he went to his 
studio, to develop the picture of the landscape taken 
by the machine during the descent." 

" I saw more than that," he added. " A veloci- 
pede passed by, devouring distance, as it is the 
property of these amazing vehicles to do ; and all 
at once, without suspending his speed, the rider 
aimed a camera at a little fair-haired girl standing 
in the street. Then continuing his journey, he 
went home to develop and fix the picture taken on 
the gallop." 

" It only remains," merrily added Daguerre, " to 
photograph a cannon-ball flying through the air 
from the mouth of a gun." 

" That will come," said Talbot, " Is there not 
an electro-mechanical machine which registers, to 
the thousandth part of a second , the instant of a 
projectile's passage ? The course of a cannon-ball 
may some day be photographed by this same in- 
strument, combined with photographic lenses." 

V That will be progress with a vengeance," said 
the shade of Niepce, laughing. 

" Would you like to hear, my friends," said Fox 
Talbot, coming nearer, " the wonders of automatic 
photography? Hear this. A few months ago I 
was hovering over the Tuileries gardens, in Paris, 
to watch the always amusing spectacle of the 
people who frequent those beautiful avenues of an 
afternoon. The broad walk which borders the Rue 
de Rivoli, and which is planted with fine young 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 205 

chestnut-trees, was filled with a crowd of mothers, 
nurses, and babies, rolling hoops and spinning tops 
between the legs of every new-comer. Little goat- 
carriages and childish teams, with long red reins, 
covered with noisy bells, moving through the 
throng, added to the general confusion. I was 
about to fly away from the din, when I saw, hidden 
by the trees, a sort of kiosk, with two dial-plates 
on the front wall, each crossed by hands like those 
of a clock. In the middle, forming a projection, 
was a short telescope, which plainly contained a 
camera. A red and white striped parasol covered 
the tiny machine, and opposite to it was an arm- 
chair, leaning against a concave metal surface, 
painted white. The whole made up the machinery 
of an automatic photographer ', executing all the 
operations of photography without the necessity 
for any intervention on the part of an operator. 
You slip a ten-cent piece into a slot near the dial- 
plate, you take your seat, and in a very short time 
you receive your photograph all framed. Is not 
this the last wonder of art?" 

" Of course you saw a picture taken ? " said 
Niepce. 

" To be sure," replied Fox Talbot. " The owner 
of the machine was a sort of Cheap Jack, in a straw 
hat, but decently dressed and tolerably well-man- 
nered. He explained the merits and advantages of 
his machine, and a circle of curious people gath- 
ered around him. A young nurse-girl, somewhat 



206 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

confused at being the centre of attraction for so 
many eyes, stepped forward, and taking a ten- 
cent piece from a shabby purse, offered it to the 
Cheap Jack, who instantly dropped it into the slot. 
At once the hands on one of the dials began to 
move, and the girl seated herself in the photogra- 
pher's chair. While the hand moved and the girl 
smoothed her hair, pulled down her cuffs, arranged 
her skirts, and put on the proper expression, 
the mysterious operation was accomplished within 
the machine, hidden from the gaze of the profane. 
The plate was covered automatically with gelatino- 
bromide of silver, and took its place behind the 
lens, hidden by a movable diaphragm. When the 
hand completed its course, a bell rang within. 
4 Don't move ! ' cried the man. The girl never 
stirred ; she was as rigid as a soldier under arms. 
Hardly ten seconds had elapsed when the bell 
stopped ringing. ' All done ! ' said the man. The 
nurse rose and mingled with the curious specta- 
tors. They waited five minutes amid universal 
silence ; and those who stood on the right side of 
the box saw a very thin sheet-iron plate some two 
and a half inches long by seven and a half wide, 
which contained the portrait, come out of a slot. 
Meantime the Cheap Jack had prepared a little 
frame of stamped brass for the picture, and had put 
into it a sheet of transparent gelatine to preserve it 
from rough handling. When the photograph issued 
from the magic box, he seized it delicately, blew on 






DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 207 

it for a few moments to dry it, for it was still wet 
from the bath, and putting it into the frame, he 
handed it to his customer, to the great admiration 
of the spectators, who crowded round her to gaze 
at the masterpiece." 

" And Avas it a good likeness ? " asked Daguerre. 

" I could only get a hasty glance at it," replied 
Fox Talbot ; " but you will think it was successful 
when you hear the rest of my story. Putting the 
tiny picture in her pocket, the nurse for the second 
time opened her purse, took out another ten-cent 
piece, herself dropped it into the slot ; then she 
again seated herself in the photographer's chair and 
asked for a second picture. You will admit, friends, 
that the first picture must have been satisfactory, 
since the girl desired another." 

" And for whom did she intend this second por- 
trait ? " said Niepce, with a smile. 

" You ask me too much," answered Talbot. " I 
am too discreet to question a young servant-maid's 
heart." 

" Let that go," replied Daguerre. " But," he 
added, " in what you have just told us there is one 
point which strikes me particularly. It follows 
from your story that to get a picture by the auto- 
matic process, a new operation must be gone 
through with each time ; for this process gives but 
a single copy, and, moreover, the picture is made 
on a metal plate. This is exactly what Niepce and 
I did when we invented photography on metal." 



208 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

" You are a thousand times right," cried Niepce, 
with warmth. " So photography, having reached 
its height of perfection, — that is to say, instantane- 
ity, — borrows our processes, our primitive method. 
Having grown to manhood, it returns to its child- 
hood days. Let us congratulate ourselves, my 
dear Daguerre, on this singular return to that which 
constituted our glory, to the starting-point of 
photography." 

All will understand, without further insistence 
upon it, the heartfelt joy of the two shades who 
thus saw the discovery which had cost them so 
much time and labor again restored to favor. 

The conversation was at an end ; each withdrew, 
and Eusebius, fluttering his wings, set out for new 
regions of air, in search of other inventors or crea- 
tors in the scientific order. 

We will not follow him in his future wanderings, 
satisfied with having in these imaginary dialogues 
given an idea of the happiness peculiar to inhabi- 
tants of the astronomic paradise, which consists of 
coming into relation with great persons who have 
left important traces in the history of humanity. 

In the foregoing pages we have considered the 
happiness reserved, in our opinion, for celestial 
spirits, of holding communion with the souls of 
illustrious scientists, because science has been the 
special object of our study ; but is it necessary to 



DIALOGUES WITH THE DEAD. 209 

add that the same kind of satisfaction is allotted 
to artists, who will enter into relations with the 
souls of great celebrities in the world of painting, 
drawing, sculpture, engraving, and architecture ? 
Is it not unequalled happiness to see face to face 
the souls of Delacroix, Ingres, David, Vernet, Meis- 
sonier ; to hear the lessons, enjoy the conversations 
and recollections of Houdon, Canova, Barye, and 
Pradier ; to receive the counsels of the great archi- 
tects who built the famous monuments of both 
worlds ? The same may be said of the great legis- 
lators, renowned politicians, celebrated historians. 
And will it be a matter of indifference to men of 
war to converse with the soul of Napoleon I. , or 
with the galaxy of illustrious generals of the First 
Empire, and to live side by side with the great 
captain who so long filled the world with the fame 
of his genius and his victories ? 



14 



CHAPTER X. 

Comparison of our System with that of the Reli- 
gions ACTUALLY EXISTING ON THE EARTH : BUDDHISM, 

Brahminism, Christianity, Islamism, Judaism. 

WE have now reviewed the joys reserved, ac- 
cording to our way of thinking, for the 
human race raised from the dead, — joys which 
atone for the misfortunes experienced during our 
earthly existence, and which are also the reward 
for the virtues of the individual and the perfection 
to which his soul may have attained on earth by the 
efforts of his will. We shall now try to prove that 
our system of the resurrection and transmigration 
of souls is the only one — if we except, from a cer- 
tain point of view, Christianity — which furnishes 
man with any genuine solace against the fear of 
death ; the only one suited to dispel the apprehen- 
sions which that critical instant inspires in all men, 
and which replaces that fear by the prospect of 
eternal bliss. 

Various statisticians have attempted to enumer- 
ate and classify the many religions now practised 
on the earth. We quote, to give some determinate 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 211 

idea, the distribution of religions recently printed 
by Hiibner, a German geographer. 

Supposing that the number of the earth's inhab- 
itants is 1,400,000,000, Hiibner gives the following 
table of the sum total of religions professed by 
man : — 

Buddhists 500,000,000 

Catholics 200,000,000 

Brahmins 150,000,000 

Protestants 110,000,000 

Greek Church 80,000,000 

Mahometans „ 80,000,000 

Israelites 6,500,000 

Christian Sects 10,000,000 

Various known religions 244,000,000 

Unknown religions 19,500,000 

Total .1,400,000,000 

The same statement may be given in the fol- 
lowing form, to make it more synthetic : — 

Buddhists 500,000,000 

f Catholics .... 200,000,000 1 

nu . .. Protestants . . . 110,000,000 [ , nftA „ n/mft 

Christians -I n , ^,, r 400,000,000 

| Greek Church . . 80,000,000 f 

^ Christian Sects . . 10,000,000 J 

Brahmins 150,000,000 

Mahometans 80,000,000 

Israelites 6,500,000 

Various known religions ........ 244,000,000 

" unknown religions 19,500,000 

Total 1,400,000,000 

In comparing our cosmogonic system with those 
religions actually existing, with regard to the con- 



212 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

solations offered against the fear of death, we will 
take up each religion in its order of numeric 
importance. Buddhism being the most prevalent 
upon our globe, since it is followed by more than 
a third of the human race (500,000,000), we shall 
begin our comparisons by a statement of the system 
of Buddha. 

Buddhism. 

Like Christianity and Islamism, Buddhism was 
founded by a man of genius, who preached to the 
people the desertion of idolatry, and substituted 
for it a new conception of the divinity. Buddha, 
Jesus, and Mahomet are the three founders of the 
religious systems that bear their names. If we 
would understand their doctrines, we must know 
the events of their lives. We therefore begin by 
a sketch of the life of Buddha. 

It was in the seventh century before our era 
(from 622 to 542 before Jesus Christ) that the 
devout personage lived who endowed India and 
Oriental Asia with a new religion, substituted by 
him for the ancient dogmas of Brahminism. His 
family name was Siddhartha. He was born at 
Kapilavastu, at the foot of the Himalaya Moun- 
tains, in a small independent kingdom bordering 
on India. He was no less than the son of the 
king of this country. A supernatural origin was 
attributed to his birth. He was said to have en- 
tered the body of his mother, Mayadevi, under the 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 213 

form of a young white elephant ; and he was said 
to have been born, ten months later, causing the 
death of her who gave him birth. 

As the three magi, according to the legend, wor- 
shipped the infant Jesus in the manger, so too 
Brahma and Indra, Indian divinities, assisted at 
the birth of Siddhartha, which was followed by 
various miracles. No sooner was he born, than 
the child took seven steps in the four directions of 
north, south, east, and west, proclaiming himself 
as the destroyer of disease, old age, and death. 

The new-born child bore on his body the thirty- 
two chief signs and the eighty secondary signs 
which, according to Indian tradition, characterize 
the great man, and prophesy for him absolute wis- 
dom. Accordingly he gave proof of unparalleled 
precocity from his earliest childhood. When he 
was sent to school, the writing-master wishing to 
teach him to form the letters of the alphabet, the 
precocious lad repeated to him a list of sixty-four 
different kinds of writing, of which the professor 
had never heard. Imagine the master's surprise 
at the sight of this polyglot in miniature ! 

However, in spite of the satisfaction which the 
brilliant qualities of his mind must have afforded 
him, Siddhartha, on attaining to early manhood, 
fell a prey to unconquerable melancholy. To dis- 
tract him, his relatives married him. But marriage 
could not dispel his sorrow, or rather, it doubled it ; 
for the young pair having parted on account of 



214 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

incompatibility of temper, after six years' separa- 
tion, Gotba — that was the wife's name — had a son ! 

His conjugal misfortunes deeply affected the 
young prince ; but what filled up the measure of 
his grief — what determined him to quit the court, 
and shut himself up in a retreat — was what 
Buddhist tradition calls the Four Encounters. 

Wearied of being detained within his palace by 
friends too assiduous in amusing him, Siddhartha 
went out one morning for a walk. ' But he met by 
the way an old man, feeble in body, with tottering 
gait and stupid air. Alarmed by these painful 
attributes of age, Siddhartha returned to his pal- 
ace, to mourn over the unhappy destiny of man, 
condemned to grow old. 

Next day, starting out at the same hour for 
a second walk, he met a sick man, carried on a 
litter. The pallor of his features, the emaciation 
of his limbs, the hideous wounds with which his 
body was covered, deeply affected the mind of 
the young prince, who hastened home to deplore 
the fate of humanity, dedicated to suffering and 
sickness. 

During a third walk he met a funeral train ; 
the parents in tears, the friends in mourning- 
dress, the women uttering loud lamentations, and 
the face of the corpse exposed to view. This spec- 
tacle terrified the sensitive youth, who from that 
moment resolved in his own mind to seek some 
remedy against old age, disease, and death. 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 215 

A fourth walk offered him what he sought. He 
saw coming toward him a Brahmin monk, whose 
calm, serious face struck him with admiration. 
The remedy for disease and death was found : it 
was the monastic life ! 

Siddhartha implored the king, his father, to give 
him leave to quit the court, and lead a hermit's 
life in some remote solitude. But the king utterly 
refusing to grant this unusual request, the young 
prince dispensed with his permission. Shielded 
by night, he secretly left the city, accompanied by 
one servant only, and mounted on a car drawn 
by a single horse. The wheels of the car were 
muffled with cloth to deaden all sound. 

When they had reached a forest, some hours 
distant from the city, Siddhartha dismissed his 
servant and the car ; then he exchanged his rich 
robes for a coarse, dark dress, and cut off his hair. 

Thus disguised, he began to follow the teachings 
of certain learned men of that region ; but their 
instructions did not meet his expectations. Weary 
of the false doctrines of these masters in regard to 
the world and Nature, he decided to seek for him- 
self, by maceration and mortification of the flesh, 
the revelation of absolute wisdom. 

Withdrawing to Mount Gatya, he condemned 
himself to eat nothing but a little rice, and to 
hold his breath that he might fall ill. In this he 
succeeded perfectly ; for after a few years of this 
regimen he was fearfully thin ; his body, which had 



216 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

become quite black, being reduced to the state of a 
skeleton. The friends and disciples whom he had 
made in the neighborhood said one to the other : 
" Sramana Gotama is quite black ; Sramana Gotama 
is perfectly blue; Sramana Gotama is just the color 
of a fish ! " Sramana Gotama — that is, Gotama 
the ascetic — was the name by which our anchorite 
was known in the country round about. 

The laughter of his friends showed Siddhartha 
that his mortification of the flesh had not revealed 
to him the principles of eternal wisdom. He there- 
fore renounced his dangerous mode of life and his 
solitude. He went down to Uruvilva, on the 
banks of the Nairandjana, and taking leave of his 
retreat as well as the austerities which he had 
practised for six years, he returned to every-day 
life, observing a happy mean, equally removed 
from a depressing asceticism and from wearisome 
pleasures. 

He then resolved to seek in religious ecstasy the 
revelation of the secret of eternal wisdom. He 
took up his position at the foot of a fig-tree (Mcus 
India), and seated himself on a carpet of grass, his 
legs crossed, determined not to quit that position 
until he had found " Buddhi ; " that is, had gained 
possession of supreme truth, which causes a man 
to become a " Buddha," a term signifying the pos- 
session of all moral perfection. 

While he was absorbed in this ecstasy, he was 
a prey to the attacks of Mara, the demon of evil, 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 217 

who let loose upon him rain, storm, and tempest, 
and who then overwhelmed him with every sort of 
projectile and engine of destruction. But nothing 
could rouse the immovable thinker from his fixed 
and meditative attitude. Seeing that violence was 
of no avail, the demon sent an army of young girls, 
who strove to lure him away ; but, like a worthy 
predecessor of Saint Anthony, he opposed an utter 
passivity to all the seductions of their charms. 

After having passed through this final proof, 
Siddhartha at length attained the object of his de- 
sires. He became "Buddha," — that is to say, pos- 
sessed of supreme wisdom, which includes (1) the 
knowledge of his exterior existences ; (2) the de- 
struction of all evil desire in his soul ; (3) the 
knowledge and concatenation of the twelve causes ; 
(4) absolute knowledge, divided into three sections. 

It was now essential that he should win disciples, 
preach the doctrine, and found a school. While 
he gave himself up to mortification of the flesh on 
Mount Gatya, he had, as disciples and friends, 
five inhabitants of the country, who took part in 
his devout practices. He sought them out to make 
them apostles of the new religion. These five aux- 
iliaries then went from town to town, in groups of 
two or three, to beg food for their master and his 
disciples. 

Such was the nucleus of the first confraternity 
of which Siddhartha was the founder ; for you 
must know that besides the institution of a re- 



218 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

ligion which took the place of that of Brahma, 
Siddhartha was the creator of the monastic men- 
dicant orders which now swarm throughout India 
and Eastern Asia. 

The Buddha passed his days as follows. He 
rose early in the morning, put on his cloak, and 
with his alms-basin in his hand, begged from 
door to door. All his disciples did the same. Re- 
turning to his monastery at noon, he took his only 
meal, and devoted the rest of the day to preaching. 
He commonly collected about him from twelve to 
fifteen hundred hearers at each gathering. 

Thus, for a period of forty-five years, Siddhartha 
preached his doctrines in the north of the Indian 
peninsula, constantly adding more and more dis- 
ciples to his confraternity, and making powerful 
friends, eager to retail his ideas throughout all 
India and Eastern Asia. Brahminism, planned for 
the use of the upper classes, was hated by the 
Indian people. Buddhism, which proclaimed the 
equality of men, fraternity, charity, morality, and 
justice for all, was everywhere received with de- 
light, and spread abroad, not only by people of 
low condition, but by princes and rajahs. 

It is impossible to form any idea of the enthu- 
siasm excited by the ardent and untiring converter. 
The new religion, opposed to antique Brahminism, 
spread like a train of powder. When Siddhartha 
visited the province and city of Rajagriha, King 
Bimbisara went out to meet him. He received 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 219 

him most cordially, and gave him as a residence 
for himself and his monks a magnificent park. 
Throughout his entire reign he granted him most 
efficient protection. 

The arrival of Buddha at Sravassi excited excep- 
tional curiosity, as it did everywhere. King Pra- 
senadjeti could not believe that so much wisdom 
could be combined with so much youth in the new 
apostle. Buddha dispelled all his doubts by one of 
his most famous sermons, the Sutra (pattern) for 
young people. 

From Sravassi he went to Kapilavastu, the capital 
of the kingdom of his father, whom he had not seen 
for ten years. He was received with the highest 
honors, and he and his monks were lodged in a 
vast park ; for devoted as he was to the cause of 
the people, he would never have consented to cross 
the threshold of the royal palace where his father 
lived. His preaching roused universal enthusiasm at 
Kapilavastu. Everybody wanted to leave the world 
and enter the Buddhist brotherhood. The king, 
his father, himself set the example of abnegation 
by resigning his crown. Deserted by their hus- 
bands, fathers, and sons, the women made the city 
ring with their laments. As this dangerous cur- 
rent had to be stopped, those who could enter the 
brotherhood were limited to one member of each 
family. 

The establishment of sisterhoods for women dates 
from this journey of Buddha toKapilavastu. Thence- 



220 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

forth there were as many " Bhikchounis " (nuns) 
as there were " Bhickous " (mendicant friars). 

After his journeys to Sravassi and Kapilavastu. 
the new apostle returned to Rajagriha, where he 
spent the second, third, and fourth years of his 
career as a preacher. During the fifth he went 
to Yazed, where the Garden of Mangoes was given 
him for a residence. 

We will not follow him in his many journeys, 
which kept him busy for thirty years more, dur- 
ing which time he everywhere received the same 
homage. Princes and rajahs, as well as the crowd, 
were converted in a body. Thus he succeeded in 
founding the new religion which, after his death, 
spread from India to China and Japan, and then to 
most of the countries of Eastern Asia. 

Recent estimates give the following table of 
adherents to Buddhism, including both monastic 
fraternities and mere individuals. We will divide 
them into Northern and Southern Buddhists ; for 
it is important to know that the teaching of 
Buddha has met with many schisms, and that 
various schools now exist, which may be divided 
into those of the North and those of the South. 

South. 

Ceylon 1,520,575 

Burmah 5,447,831 

Siam 10,000,000 

Annam 12,000,000 

India Proper 485,000 

29,453,406 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 221 

North. 

Dutch Indies 50,000 

British India 500,000 

Kussian Asia (Kalmucks, etc.) .... 600,000 

Loo-Choo Islands 1,000,000 

Corea ......' 8,000,000 

Bhotan and Sikkim 1,000,000 

Cashmere 200,000 

Thibet 6,000,000 

Mongolia 2,000,000 

Mantchuria 3,000,000 

Japan 32,794,897 

Nepaul 500,000 

China 414,686,994 

Total 470,331,891 

With those of the South, that is . 29,453,406 

General total 499,785,297 

This gives us a figure not far from the five 
hundred million, which we gave in the beginning of 
this chapter. 

After a very long life, twenty-nine years of which 
were spent at the court of the king, his father, six 
in the practice of asceticism, and forty-five in 
preaching, Siddhartha died, at the age of eighty, in 
the country of the Mallas, near the city of Kusina- 
gara. His faithful disciple, Ananda, was the only 
person present at his death-bed, and received his 
last breath. 

His death caused universal mourning among the 
inhabitants of India. His body was burned ; and 



222 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

the ashes were divided into eight parts, which were 
placed in as many funeral monuments. 

Siddhartha wrought the wonder of converting 
millions to his doctrine, by the unaided power of 
his words, and by the virtues of which he set an 
example. He never pretended to be sent by God, 
and performed no miracles. These two things 
clearly distinguish Buddha from Jesus and 
Mahomet. 

At his death his disciples and the apostles of his 
ideas collected together the facts of his life and 
his sermons with a view to writing them out. 
They then called a meeting of five hundred monks, 
which was held at Rajagriha, and was the first 
Buddhist council. 

The chief dogmas of the Buddhist religion were 
formulated at this meeting ; but the secondary 
points not being touched upon, divergent doctrines 
soon arose. In order to give the new religion the 
unity which it threatened to lose, the most ardent 
propagandist of Buddhistic views in India, the King 
of Pataliputra (Asoka was his name), called a 
second council, composed of seven hundred monks. 
This assembly, which met one hundred and ten 
years after the death of Buddha, settled the chief 
dogmas, and made out a list of canonical books. 

However, eighteen new sects having been formed 
between the decisions of the second council, a third 
council had to be held four hundred vears after the 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 223 

death of the founder of the faith, which reconciled 
all these dogmas. These councils were all previous 
to the Christian era. 

We have not yet spoken of Buddha's doctrines. 
It is now time to take up this point. 

We will divide our brief sketch into three parts : 
Buddha s System of Morals and Philosophy; 
Buddha's Theodicy; Man's Destiny. 

System of Morals and Philosophy. — Buddha's 
system of morals was perfectly correct, and one of 
the most beautiful ever taught to man. Obedience 
to parents, love of children, devotion to friends, in- 
dulgence to inferiors, kindness to animals, respect 
for Brahmins and learned people, — in short, toler- 
ance, charity, and universal brotherhood, — such 
are the chief teachings of the Buddhistic system of 
morals. They are to be put in practice by the sup- 
pression of passions and desires, which are the first 
cause of all our ills. 

We hasten to add that an impenetrable obscurity 
surrounds Buddhism so soon as wc leave the region 
of pure morality. For centuries, writers of all 
lands have vainly striven to dispel these clouds. 
We will not enter upon the abstruse study of 
Buddha's philosophy, which would take us away 
from our object ; for what we chiefly wish to 
consider is the Buddhist theodicy, — that is to say, 
the idea which that religion gives us of God and 
the Creation. 



224 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Theodicy. — It is easy to prove that atheism and 
nihilism are the end and aim of the so-called reli- 
gious dogmas of Buddhism. We shall see, indeed, 
that the gods accepted by Buddha are intimately 
associated in all their acts with the inhabitants of 
the earth. They may be deprived of their celestial 
existence, and again assume bodily form on our 
globe. There is thus a perpetual interchange be- 
tween divinity and man, between earth and heaven. 
Such promiscuity is simply atheism. 

The wise men of Indian councils have established 
a sort of hierarchy among the gods {devas}, in 
which these devas are divided into successive 
grades, as the officers are in a battalion. 

Heaven is the abode of the gods, or genii 
(devas), — that is, those beings who by their mer- 
its have won a privileged position, a position which 
they may lose if they cease to deserve it. If the 
vicissitudes of their celestial existence lead them to 
commit faults, they again descend to earth, and by 
a transmigration backward, once more begin their 
earthly career. Devas, therefore, are not, properly 
speaking, gods, but beings enjoying the fruit of their 
virtues. 

The Buddhist books of China contain a sketch 
showing, by a series of lines running from top to 
bottom of the page, the places occupied by the 
gods in the various departments of heaven. 

Three regions, one above the other, are the 
abode of the three categories of gods. The lower 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 225 

region is called the region of desire, the middle 
one the region of form, and the upper one the re- 
gion without form. The higher they ascend, the 
more fully are the dwellers in these three regions 
purified from the stains of existence. There are 
even, in each region, certain stages, answering to 
the various states of purification ; for these stages, 
to the number of twenty-eight, contain gods of 
different degrees of merit. 

In the region of desire, where the purity of the 
gods is least, we find six stages. The genii, or gods, 
who dwell here are, reckoning from below upward : 

(1) the four great kings and their subjects, settled on 
the sides of Mount Meru, which bears up the sky ; 

(2) the god Indra and the thirty-three gods ; (3) the 
yamas (the vigilants) ; (4; the tushitas (the sat- 
isfied), — it was from this region of the sky that 
Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, descended, 
to fulfil his final earthly existence ; (5) the Nir- 
manaratis (those who delight in transformations) ; 
(6) the Paranirmdnavas (those who delight in 
transforming their centres). The region of form, 
which is next above that of desire, is divided into 
several stages, whose singular names we omit. 

The region without form receives those beings 
in whom life is reduced to its minimum. The first 
stage of this region is called void; the second, 
absolute knoivledge ; the third, the stage where noth- 
ing is ; the fourth, that where each is conscious of 
self. Here the gods reach the term of their de- 

15 



226 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

liverance : they sink into nothingness. We shall 
see presently that nothingness (Nirvana) is, indeed, 
the supreme good, reserved, according to Buddhist 
doctrines, for those who have deserved, by their 
trials and their virtues, the end of existence, and 
eternal rest. 

This strange distribution of gods, or genii, which 
divides the ruling and regulating power of the 
world among so many individualities, is not at all 
illogical. But to admit a divinity capable of a fall, 
of loss of merit, is contrary to the idea of divine 
perfection. In brief, the system laid down by 
Buddhist sages is nothing but atheism and moral 
nihilism. Thus the Indian, the Chinese, the Japa- 
nese, the Singalese, the Annamite, the native of 
Tonquin, etc., care very little about the divinity and 
his influence over human actions. Religious wor- 
ship, with them, is reduced to the greatest simplicity. 
The Buddhist temple (stupa) is only intended to 
contain a part of the relics of Buddha or to exhibit 
his image. No sacrifice is ever made there, and no 
prayers of any sort are uttered. Everything is 
reduced to commemorative offerings, which are 
placed before the master's image. Worship is 
purely honorific, and excludes all superstitious cer- 
emony ; for Buddha declared that religious worship 
was contrary to morality. 

Destiny of Man. — We know that the learned 
Orientalist, Eugene Bournouf, made a profound 
study of Buddhism. According to his works, 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 227 

the principles of that doctrine, concerning hu- 
man destiny, may be summed up in the following 
propositions : — 

I. There is no creation ; consequently there is no 
creator. The world, made up of matter and forces, 
is eternal. There is no immortal soul ; individuals 
are temporary incarnations of forms, which are 
themselves in a perpetual state of change. 

II. The visible world is incessantly changing its 
form ; death incessantly succeeds to life, and life 
to death. 

III. Men and animals pass through an unending 
series of transmigrations. Man passes successively 
through all forms of life, from the lower animals 
up to himself ; and the place which he occupies in 
the series of beings depends upon the merit of the 
deeds that he has done. Thus the virtuous man is 
born again, after this life, in the body of a god ; 
the guilty man in the body of one damned. 

IV. Man's good actions are rewarded by his 
sojourn in heaven, the abode of genii and gods. 
But nothing is eternal ; time exhausts the merit 
of virtuous deeds, just as it effaces the wrong of 
evil deeds. The law of change, therefore, inevi- 
tably brings gods and condemned back to earth, 
both being placed in a state to begin once more 
the test of purity, and to pass through a new 
period of transmigrations, from animal species to 
animal species and to human beings. 

Y. The reward and supreme end of trials victo- 



228 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

riously met is to enter oblivion, where all suffering 
ends, where being attains the goal of its long 
transmigrations, griefs, and joys. Buddhists call 
this final annihilation of individuality Nirvana. 

VI. Man's speedy entrance to Nirvana — that 
is, nothingness — is made known by the posses- 
sion of unlimited knowledge, which gives him 
an exact perception of the world as it is, and the 
possession of transcendent perfections, which are : 
charity, purity, knowledge, energy, patience, and 
benevolence. 

From this statement we see that Buddhism is 
based on two fundamental ideas : the transmigra- 
tion of beings, a period of trials and expiations, of 
indefinite extent, the only meaning of our exist- 
ence ; and Nirvdna, or the annihilation of the indi- 
vidual, which is our final reward, the end of our 
trials or expiations, which terminates forever the 
circle of our existences. 

The principles of Buddhism are contained in the 
collection of sermons by Siddhartha, the founder 
of the system. The collection of Buddhist books 
consists of two great works, — the Kandjur (108 
volumes folio), and the Dandjur (240 volumes 
folio). These are the equivalent of the Christian 
Bible and the Mahometan Koran. 

Is it necessary to dwell upon the point to make 
our readers understand all the horrors of Buddhist 
philosophy ? It is pure atheism ; it is pessimism, 
which is usually thought to be a modern invention, 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 229 

but which was professed in the Orient, twenty-five 
centuries before the advent of Auguste Comte, 
Biichner and Darwin, the leaders of modern 
materialism and positivism in Europe. Nonentity, 
elevated into a dogma, and given as the reward of 
virtue, offered to men as the supreme object of all 
their aspirations ; nonentity, nothing, after an 
existence of unmerited misery ; nonentity, set up 
at the close of reincarnations, as the recompense of 
unrecognized honesty and devotion, of much abused 
resignation, of innocence oppressed, — can we con- 
ceive of a people who would profess such a religion? 
What society, outside of Asia, could bear with 
impunity the shock of sucli monstrous ideas ? 

Compare the doctrine of the rewards and plea- 
sures reserved for the virtuous, in our system of 
celestial transmigrations, with the gloomy theory 
of Buddha, and look at their comparative con- 
sequences. Take two men, one a convert to the 
idea of the second birth of humanity in the ethereal 
medium, in the enjoyment of the many felicities 
attached to this new period of his existence ; the 
other believing the doctrine of the Buddhist 
Nirvana. 

The former, regarding the difficulties of his 
earthly life as transitory accidents, looking forward 
to the blissful existences which he is to lead in 
planetary ether, accepts, with composure, his share 
of the misfortunes which may befall him during 
his sojourn here below. He will labor courageously 



230 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

to enlarge the sphere of his knowledge ; and having 
acquired a number of new aptitudes, he will await 
with philosophic calm the close of his earthly 
career. 

The other, the Buddhist, — the partisan of the 
dismal comforter, to whom moral perfection, knowl- 
edge, and virtue offer no other prospect or reward 
than the annihilation of his being, — will endure 
the burden of life with indifference and impassivity. 
He will lose all interest in his surroundings. He 
will reflect that the good or the evil which he may 
do in this life are much alike, since all that awaits 
him, after death, all for which he can hope, is the 
final suppression of his being. " What is the use of 
being virtuous," he will say, " since nonentity is the 
equal lot of all ; since labor, knowledge and honor, 
goodness and beauty, lead straight to annihilation ? 
Let us pass our life in idleness and amusement ; let 
us use all the resources of our mind to satisfy our 
passions, our desires, our caprices. Let us pay no 
heed to the rest of humanity ; what will humanity 
be to us, when we sink into oblivion ? " The unfor- 
tunate Indian pariah, scorned, condemned to the 
vilest tasks, shunned by society, has no hope of 
finding, after his death, compensation for the evils 
which he has endured. Frightful despair must take 
possession of his soul ; since all that he can expect, 
as the reward of his pains and his submission, is 
the destruction of his person. 

And this is the doctrine which holds beneath its 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 231 

yoke five hundred million men, — that is to say, 
one third of the human race ! 

Do you wonder, now, at the indifference, moral 
inertia, and contempt for life, which we find among 
Indians, Cingalese, Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, 
Thibetans, etc., if those people put genuine confi- 
dence in the principles of the religion of their 
fathers ? It is difficult for us to believe that this 
gloomy dogma, which has ruled over the greater part 
of Eastern Asia for two thousand years, can retain 
in our day the same supremacy which it possessed 
at its origin ; for such beliefs, judged from our stand- 
point as men of the Occident, are repugnant to hu- 
man nature, and must cause us to shrink in horror 
and disgust. 

Brahminism. 

Brahminism is closely allied to Buddhism, and 
it would not be possible to separate them without 
injuring the clearness of the statement. In fact, 
Brahminism is the religion of India, as Buddhism 
is that of the rest of Asia and its dependencies. 

Brahminism, one of the oldest religions in the 
world, reigned exclusively in Asia, when in the 
seventh century before Christ there appeared the 
great reformer who in his persuasive addresses 
promised salvation to the multitude without distinc- 
tion of castes, and exalted universal charity and 
brotherly love. As we have said, the greater part of 
Asia was won over to the new religion. The Indian 



232 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

peninsula alone resisted the religious revolution ; 
but even this was for a time led away by the general 
movement. The startling conversion of rajahs 
and Indian princes deprived the Brahmins of many 
of their adherents. And yet the ancestral religion 
fought hard. Foreign invasion of India (by Greeks 
and Scythians) made it easier to resist ; for the Brah- 
mins, with their caste spirit, detested the barbarian, 
the stranger, who, mixing with the inhabitants, 
shocked national instincts and offended against fun- 
damental customs of Hindoo society. Brahminism 
therefore finally resumed its sway, and that religion 
is now almost the only one professed in Hindostan. 

And yet it was not without some changes that 
Brahminism remained the dominant religion. Old 
customs prescribed for private worship in public 
fell into disuse, and sacrifices were wholly changed 
or simplified. 

Added to this, in our day, an important schism 
has arisen in the Hindoo religion. A rival of 
Buddha, the reformer Keshub Chunder Sen, who 
was born in 1838 and died in 1884, preceded and 
taught by another man of genius, Ram-Mohun-Roy, 
founded the " Brahmo-Somaj," which has a great 
number of followers, who publish magazines and 
books, and hold conferences intended to give a 
definite form to the new ideas. The work entitled 
" Nava Bidhan " (New Doctrine), which appeared in 
1880, gives the synthesis of the Brahmo religion. 
But we shall not enter here upon any examination of 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 233 

this attempt at reform. We shall rest content with 
stating the general dogmas of the time-honored 
religion professed by Hindoos. 

The word Brahma means the supreme being, the 
only God ; for monotheism, in opposition to Buddhist 
polytheism, is the characteristic of the Indian 
religion. 

This supreme and only being is, however, divided 
into three equal potentialities ; just as, in the 
Christian religion, the supreme being is divided 
into God the Father, God the Son, and God the 
Holy Ghost. 

Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are the three divine 
personalities who by their union make up the 
supreme being of the Hindoos. 

The sun is the emblem of Brahma, who is the 
creator of the universe, and represents the work 
accomplished in the past. 

Water is the emblem of Vishnu, who represents 
the present, preservation, space. 

Fire is the emblem of Siva, the destructive prin- 
ciple, who also represents time, or the future, as 
well as avenging justice. 

These three gods exercise their power through 
the intermediation of an endless number of secon- 
darv divinities. 

It is to recall this trinity of attributes that the 
Hindoos, in their images of the supreme God, rep- 
resent him with four heads, ornamented with lotus 
leaves. He holds in his four hands a chain, which 



234 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

supports the world, the book of the law, the 
bodkin used in writing, and the sacrificial fire. 

According to Indian tradition, the castes into 
which the country is divided are of divine origin; 
and this it is that makes this social institution 
immovable. 

It is supposed that Brahma had four sons, whose 
descendants form the existing castes. These four 
sons, in fact, gave birth : (1) to Brahmins, the 
highest, most aristocratic caste, which supplies 
priests, scholars, and public officials ; (2) to 
Kshatriyas, or warriors, whence come rajahs and 
princes ; (3) to Vaishyas, who produce merchants 
and farmers ; (4) to Sudras, that is, workmen and 
artisans. 

The Brahmins sprang from the mouth of 
Brahma ; the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras 
issued from his arms, thighs, and feet. 

Thus were created and brought into the world 
the ancestors of the four castes which make up the 
Hindoo population. It is forbidden to leave these 
castes, or to mix them by marriage. 

Pariahs is the name applied to those persons 
who belong to none of these four social classes, 
because their ancestors, or they themselves, have 
been cast out of them in consequence of their 
demerits. Rejected by society, these unfortunates 
are considered unclean beings, all contact and 
intercourse with whom must be avoided. They 
are banished to solitary places, and are forced to 
carry on the vilest trades. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 235 

The Yedas, the books of Vishnu, and the " Code 
of the Laws of Manu " are the sacred books of the 
Hindoos, as the Bible and the Koran are to Chris- 
tians and Mahometans written guides containing 
revelations from God. 

Public worship is addressed not to Brahma, 
who is regarded as inaccessible to the prayers of 
men, but to Siva, Vishnu, and secondary divinities. 
Pagodas or temples are consecrated to them ; but 
public worship is not carried on in these pagodas, 
which merely serve to receive offerings to Brahma 
or secondary divinities. 

Worship is wholly private, and is performed 
either at home or in the open air, upon altars 
reared for the purpose, and moved from place to 
place, as necessity requires. 

The rites of the Brahmin worship are very com- 
plicated. They are performed by Brahmin priests, 
and vary singularly. One rite requires the milk of 
a black cow who has given birth to a white calf. 
The kind of wood to be used for the sacrificial 
fire is rigorously prescribed. The accent and pro- 
nunciation of the verses from the Vedas which 
accompany sacrifices are minutely stipulated. 

Sacrifices are sometimes daily, sometimes fort- 
nightly, and sometimes only occasional. Some last 
but a few moments, others are prolonged for 
years. Ceremonies are intertangled ; introduction 
follows upon introduction, conclusion upon conclu- 
sion, according to the principles of a complex for- 



236 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

malism, into which Brahmins alone are initiated. 
Thus the rite sometimes requires the presence 
of more than fifteen or twenty priests at a single 
sacrifice. 

Religious hymns are also a peculiarity of the 
Brahmins. 

Religious worship requires ablutions in sacred 
rivers, especially in the Ganges ; and the holy city 
of Benares is the obligatory goal of pilgrimages, as 
Mecca is for Mussulmans. 

We now come to an essential part of the religion 
of Brahma, — metempsychosis, which plays an im- 
portant part, not only in the religion, but in the 
social customs of India. This doctrine interests 
us particularly, because it was thence that modern 
philosophy derived the idea of the transmigration 
of souls, — a doctrine which we have adopted in the 
" Tomorrow of Death " and in the present work. 

Indian metempsychosis originated in man's 
original sin, just as Christianity is based upon the 
feigned unworthiness of man. According to the 
Hindoo dogma, man was created free and perfect. 
When the world was formed, we read in the 
Vedas, spiritual prototypes were born, who pro- 
duce all life, and dwell in ether. They are pure 
spirits, analogous to the angels of Judaism and 
Christianity. These superior beings long enjoyed 
a state of blessedness ; but some of them having 
through pride ceased to merit such happiness, the 
supreme being deprived them of their beatitude, and 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 237 

banished them, in order to subject them to a state 
of trial and renovation. 

The downfall of these spirits, according to the 
Vedas, was fatal in its consequences for the earth. 
Its axis was displaced, and acquired the vicious 
inclination which causes inequalities of season and 
climate, to the great injury of human health and 
happiness. The stars also were turned from their 
course; which brought about the Flood. 

The human soul is an image of divinity in mem- 
ory of its original nature of pure spirit, directly 
created by God ; but it is condemned by the will of 
Brahma to undergo successive migrations through 
the bodies of different animals and of man, even 
in plants, according to the merits and demerits 
of each soul. 

These migrations will end when Brahma shall 
destroy our material world, to replace it by a new 
one. This destruction will occur in four hundred 
and thirty-two thousand years. Then God will 
appear, and replace the material world by another 
wholly spiritual, where every creature shall enjoy 
the felicity to which his merits entitle him. 

The Hindoos believe so firmly in metempsychosis 
that there is at Bombay a magnificent refuge for 
old or infirm animals, and at Jeypore there is a 
huge pond where more than three hundred croco- 
diles are maintained. The rajah of the country, 
in spite of remonstrances from the English Govern- 
ment, insists on keeping them, declaring that the 



238 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

souls of his ancestors are contained in those 
animals. 

The idea of metempsychosis has become a social 
law with the Hindoos, and the result is as follows : 
The Hindoo waits patiently for the renewal of 
the world and its transformation into a spiritual 
domain ; but as he can hasten his entrance to the 
new world by his virtues, far from avoiding suffer- 
ing, he seeks it as a means of making himself 
sooner worthy of the destiny for which he hopes. 
The earth being regarded as a place of expiation, 
the idea of sanctity is naturally attached to the 
privations which he imposes on himself, and the 
pangs which he voluntarily endures. The Hindoo 
condemns himself to terrible punishments in order 
that he may not have to atone in another life for 
the sin which he has committed. He even exposes 
himself to cruel mortifications of the flesh, when 
he is guilty of no sin, simply with a view to blotting 
out and expiating his future faults. The present 
life is therefore merely voluntary or preventive 
expiation and sanctification to him. 

The character with which a Hindoo invests his 
life casts a gloom over his thoughts. He longs for 
death, as destined to hasten by successive rebirths 
his entrance to the spiritual world, where he will be 
spared all suffering, and will be reunited to his 
creator, Brahma. 

Rebirth after death has not therefore to a Hindoo 
the character of reward which we give it in our 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 239 

system of the transmigration of souls. While we 
consider the present life as a preparation for the 
life to come, Hindoos regard it as the result of a 
series of previous existences ill spent. A man is 
placed in a social caste or in a star, according to 
the merits or demerits of a former life. In our 
system the earth is a place of trial ; in the Indian 
doctrine it is a place of expiation, very similar to 
the Catholic purgatory. According to the Brahmin 
religion, the soul expiates, by assuming a certain 
body, a certain form, faults committed in a past 
life. 

And yet we must note that in the Brahmanic 
doctrine the soul has no recollection of its previous 
existences, or of the sins committed in them ; nor 
in its lives to come will it have any better memory 
of its present life. 

Thus, in the eyes of the religion of Hindostan, 
man is nothing ; he has no freedom, he obeys a 
higher power which is not accountable to him. He 
is a part of general humanity, which moves by a 
higher decree towards a goal assigned in advance 
by God. A uniform law, one and the same force, 
bears onward all human souls, and guides them all 
unconsciously towards one and the same final goal. 

In the Hindoo system, the rebirth of souls, the 
celestial metempsychosis is undoubtedly immortal- 
ity ; but it is an immortality without memory, con- 
sciousness, or freedom. But is it not plain that to 
live again without memory of the past is not living 



240 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

again ? There is no real immortality where there 
is no continuation of individuality by memory. 
Expiation unaccompanied by memory is not expi- 
ation. We must have knowledge of our faults 
before we can regret and atone for them. The 
contrary is sheer nonsense. 

We are careful to say in our system, that, from 
the moment of his resurrection, man, who had 
no recollection of his existences in the animal 
state, by reason of the weak development of the soul 
in animals, will possess complete memory of his 
past existence, when he attains to the state of super- 
human being. Thus immortality will be accompa- 
nied to him by continuation of individual being. 

A Hindoo, persuaded that his present life is 
merely an expiation and forced progress towards 
another state, it being out of his power in any way 
to modify the fate reserved for him, passively en- 
dures the burden of the present life. He never for 
an instant dreams of leaving the caste into which 
he was born. He cannot complain because he is a 
Sudra, since he is condemned to live again in that 
state, in consequence of sins committed in a pre- 
vious existence. He can only submit, fulfil the 
duties of a Sudra, and serve higher castes, in order 
the sooner to prepare for his soul a better position 
in another life. 

Caste spirit takes the place of family feeling in 
India. Hindoos love their wives and children, but 
that affection is subordinated to certain principles. 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 241 

Expulsion from one's family is the result of 
various causes, chiefly of the violation of rules laid 
down by religion, or of the illicit intercourse of 
women of high caste with men of an inferior 
caste. 

If a man belonging to one of the three upper 
castes allies himself to a Sudra, — that is, to the 
servile caste, or worse yet, to a Pariah, and lives 
with her, — he cannot legally marry her, he is in- 
stantly degraded, in virtue of direct orders of the 
law of Vishnu ; and he debases his family as well 
as his offspring to the condition of Sudras. If he 
be a Brahmin, his son as well as himself ceases to 
be so. No expiation is possible to him from the 
moment that his lips are once contaminated by a 
Sudra. 

Brahmins and Sudras, as well as Pariahs them- 
selves, are divided into a number of sub-castes, a 
member of which can neither eat, drink, nor marry 
with any member of any other sub-caste. If a Hin- 
doo is degraded, if he loses caste, he is cast off by his 
relations ; his wife is regarded as a widow, his chil- 
dren as orphans ; and he need look for no help, no 
pity, from those who have hitherto surrounded him 
with most devoted care. 

Europeans rank with Pariahs, because they make 
daily use at their meals of the flesh of oxen. 
Brahmins do indeed consent to shake hands with 
Europeans ; but on returning home they are careful 
to change their dress and perform ablutions, in 

16 



242 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

order to purify themselves of the stain which so 
impure a touch has left. 

Every Indian village (at least in the Deccan) is 
invariably composed of two parts, divided by a dis- 
tance of some yards. There are two wholly dis- 
tinct quarters, — one reserved for people of caste, 
the other surrounded by hedges and intended for 
Pariahs. These wretched creatures are not allowed 
to enter the village streets without the consent of 
the inhabitants ; and they are forbidden to draw 
water elsewhere than from the wells set apart for 
their use. In places where the Pariahs have no 
wells, they set down their jars by the wells of peo- 
ple of caste, and wait humbly and patiently for 
some one to bestow the alms of a few glasses of 
water. It is always women who are charged with 
this household care. 

Higher castes often give presents to Pariahs, 
invariably laying them on the ground for fear of 
contracting by mere contact that moral leprosy 
with which Pariahs are, in their eyes, infected. No 
man of caste ever accepts a gift from the hand of a 
Pariah. 

If in physical and intellectual respects those of 
high caste are far superior to Pariahs, the latter 
are more laborious, more docile, more accessible to 
European influences. In the Presidency of Ma- 
dras they form the best disciplined and most solid 
part of the native recruits to the English army. 

Brahminism, as we see, is less a religion than a 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 243 

social institution, characterized by the existence of 
castes and founded on the doctrine of metempsy- 
chosis. The life of each individual is ordered in 
the minutest manner, so that it may be blended 
with the religious duties. 

From the idea of metempsychosis, which forms 
an essential part of the religious and social beliefs 
of the Hindoos, results the respect which they as a 
people show to animals. In fact, they are consid- 
ered as possibly containing sympathetic souls, and 
religious laws forbid the eating of their flesh. 

Faithful observers of religious ordinances, Hin- 
doos are essentially vegetarians. They abstain 
from all animal food on pain of being dismissed 
from their caste and exiled from the bosom of 
their family. The Pariahs alone eat meat ; they 
devour all sorts of animals and drink arrack (rice 
brandy). 

The ordinary food of a Hindoo consists of rice 
boiled in water, and a mixture of vegetables with 
butter, saffron, and spices, known as " curry ; " occa- 
sionally eggs or milk ; rarely fish, and sometimes 
cakes made of banana flour and breadfruit. Morn- 
ing and evening the meal is the same for rich and 
poor. 

As a vegetable diet is very weakening to the 
stomach, the Hindoo is forced to make use of an 
astringent stimulant, to restore the powers of that 
organ. Areca nuts and betel pepper are therefore 
the necessary seasoning of every meal. It is betel 



244 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

that gives the lips of natives the yellow tinge so 
universally seen. 

Like the Mahometan, the Hindoo drinks nothing 
but water, — tepid water for the rich, cold water 
for the poor. All fermented drinks are strictly 
forbidden by the Code of the Laws of Manu. 

We must, however, state that in the Kshatriya 
(warrior) caste, it has been found necessary, on 
account of the rigors of their profession, to do 
away with the strict letter of these laws. A 
Kshatriya abstains from such meats as are con- 
sidered impure, as beef, veal, and pork, but he is 
willing to eat fish, poultry, and even mutton; 
various vegetables, both green and dried, however, 
continue to form the staple of his daily diet. 

This respect for animals, derived from the idea 
of metempsychosis, is carried so far that the fol- 
lowers of a peculiar religious sect, the Jains, to 
avoid killing even the microbes of the air by ab- 
sorbing them in breathing, wear by day and by 
night a very fine linen cloth over their nose and 
mouth. As also no filter can wholly free water 
from all animal substances, they drink no water that 
has not been boiled. Do they understand our 
modern principles of hygiene ? 

When a Jain goes out, he is always to carry a 
special broom, to sweep away any insect which 
may cross his path. He walks with downcast 
eyes, lest he should crush one by mistake. 1 

1 Anthropological Review, May 15, 1888. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 245 

We find an infinite number of persons, of high 
caste and of every rank, who will never kill either 
a fly or an ant. Such people often catch a flea 
which is running over their clothes and carefully 
carry it out of the house. 

Respect for animals is thus carried to its ex- 
tremest limits among the Hindoos. But by a spirit 
of contradiction familiar to the human mind, the 
Hindoo, who scruples to kill an insect, is utterly 
barbarous, not only to the Pariah, but to himself. 
He hates and persecutes the Pariah, whom he re- 
gards as an unclean being, who must be avoided 
if he would escape contagion and disease. He 
treats him harshly, in order to keep him in the 
miserable caste to which he belongs ; and he be- 
comes his own executioner, from a conviction that 
the physical sufferings which he inflicts on himself 
are agreeable to Brahma. 

Brahminism is full of superstitions, some ridicu- 
lous, others revolting. We know that during a 
yearly festival — that of Juggernaut — Brahma's 
car crushes beneath its heavy wheels countless vic- 
tims, who fling themselves into the jaws of death 
in order to insure themselves eternal felicity. 

Fanatics assemble in temples to undergo together 
voluntary torture, which is to hasten their entrance 
into immaterial life. A widow will ascend the pyre 
which burns her husband's body ; and although 
since 1830 the English have striven to put an end 
to this odious custom, instances are still quoted 
where it has been impossible to prevent it. 



246 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

The terrible Sepoy insurrection, which set all 
India on fire, is one of the most fearful instances 
of Hindoo superstition. The Sepoys are the na- 
tive regiments formed by the English for military 
service in the Indian Empire. In 1856 rifles were 
distributed to these Sepoys. Unfortunately, the 
cartridges were greased with lard. Now the pig is 
considered unclean by Hindoos as well as Mahom- 
etans. Anv soldier who bit these cartridges in 
two would necessarily touch to his lips particles of 
the flesh forbidden by his religion. 

This was quite enough to incite a general revolt 
of the native troops. Ninety Sepoys being sen- 
tenced to ten years in irons for refusing to touch 
these cartridges, the three regiments forming the 
garrison of Meerut rushed to the prison, freed their 
comrades, and massacred all the Europeans on 
whom they could lay hands. They then entered 
Delhi, a city of one hundred and fifty thousand 
inhabitants, roused the native population, and 
killed every European with horrible torture. 

Other regiments followed the example of those 
of Meerut ; and in this way a fearful insurrection 
of the entire native population was brought about. 
The war lasted two years, and was marked on both 
sides by unheard-of refinements of cruelty. The 
Sepoys flayed their prisoners alive, and disem- 
bowelled women ; the English hung or shot the 
natives. They bound fifty or sixty men to the 
mouth of the cannon and fired them off every day, 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 247 

on the slightest pretext, — for a word, for a letter 
handed to an insurgent. Whole regiments of Sepoys 
were thus put to death, and the war was brought 
to an end only by the total destruction of the in- 
surgent troops. And all this for a few pounds of 
lard ! We may well be proud of humanity ! 

Christianity. 

We now come to the dogmas of Christianity, 
viewed from the special point of view of this book, 
— that is to say, in regard to the consolations 
offered by this religion to man, to comfort him at 
the moment of death. 

When we leave the gloomy aspects of Buddhism 
and Brahminism, to enter on the wholesome pros- 
pects of Christianity, we feel like the traveller 
who, coming from the heart of the arid desert, sees 
the smiling landscapes of a blossoming oasis. A 
moment since, mournful solitude and an endless 
stretch of sand, absence of all organic life on a 
parched ground ; now the cool breath of running 
water, verdure, shrubs, trees, and flowers. There 
the distressing tenets of Oriental fatalism and nihil- 
ism ; here the principles, loudly proclaimed, of the 
immortality of the soul, a sovereign Creator, the 
resurrection of men, and even the existence of 
beings superior to humanity, — angels, who watch 
over our destiny. We must therefore bow down 
before Christianity, which contains principles in 
accord with those advocated in the present work. 



248 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Let us hasten to say, however, that important 
reserves are to be made after this declaration of 
approval. 

The dogma regarding the penalties and rewards 
awaiting man beyond the tomb is expressed as 
follows by the Church : — 

" When we cease to live our body remains on earth, 
where it decays. The soul, set free from all material 
alloy, appears before God, who, seated on His throne, 
judges its merits or dements. The soul of the just 
ascends into heaven ; that of the wicked descends into 
hell. There they both await the hour of the last judg- 
ment, which will mark the end of the world. Then the 
trumpet shall sound to summon the inmates of paradise 
and of hell, for the second time, before the bar of God. 
Each man's bod}' shall reassume the form that it wore 
on earth ; the soul shall return to its former dwelling, 
even sex shall be restored ; and God shall pronounce 
His final sentence as to the fate of each individual, who 
shall be sent back to hell or admitted to heaven, accord- 
ing to his deserts and the result of his first atonement." 

We say nothing of purgatory, a middle term 
between heaven and hell, since it is merely a mat- 
ter of money. Christian councils invented purga- 
tory only with a view to having the souls of those 
detained there bought off at a high price ; so that the 
rich easily evade this temporary prison, but the poor 
can never escape it. It is useless to dwell on it ! 

The Church adds that when the trumpet shall 
sound for the last judgment, the light of sun and 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 249 

moon shall be extinguished and the stars snatched 
from the firmament. 

We have already expressed our views, in the 
" To-morrow of Death," in regard to the Christian 
legend of punishments and rewards, borrowed from 
Pagan antiquity. The judgment of Minos, Hades, 
and Elysium furnished the idea of the last judg- 
ment, ending in paradise or in hell. We will not 
repeat the criticism of this antique conception 
which we published in the " To-morrow of Death." 
Moreover, as words always have great influence 
over men, theologians have hit upon a word, to 
avoid an impossible controversy. This is the word 
faith, which means that we must believe in the 
mysteries of the Christian Church, trample reason 
under foot, and say, Credo quia absurdum. We 
have faith when we believe in the dogma set forth 
above. 

And yet we must have a mutual understanding. 
It is admitted that two and two make four, that 
the whole is greater than a part, that a straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points ; 
that the radii of a circle are all of equal length, 
etc. Reason leads man to accept these self-evident 
truths. But if the same man admits that three are 
equal to one (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but 
one person, according to the Church) ; that the par- 
ticles composing a human body may find their way 
together again after thousands of years, and recon- 
stitute the original body, etc., — all things contrary 



250 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

to reason, — we can no longer make use of that same 
reason to recognize any fact as real ; and hence it 
is not true that two and two make four, that the 
whole is greater than a part, that the radii of a 
circle are all of equal length, etc. Still, human 
society and nature itself, which is wholly mathe- 
matical, rest upon these truths, and if you destroy 
them there will be nothing left. 

The Church adds that at the sound of the last 
trump the stars shall fall from the sky. But the 
stars are suns which light worlds similar to ours. 
If they drop from heaven, where are they to go, 
since heaven is merely space ? Finally, if the stars 
disappear, nothing will be left of the universe but 
our earth with its planets and its sun. And as the 
orbit described around the sun by the earth is influ- 
enced by the other stars in the firmament, that 
orbit will necessarily be greatly disturbed in the 
absence of the stars. The earth and the other 
planets will follow another course, and everything 
in our solar system will be absolutely destroyed. 
Thus the whole universe will crumble, because, for- 
sooth, the merits and demerits of the inhabitants 
of a mere planet must be judged, — a star so small 
that it occupies no more space in the infinite whole 
of creation than a grain of sand on the seashore ! 

Science likewise refutes the idea of the soul's 
reinstallation in the old body at the moment of the 
last judgment. In fact, when a body corrupts in 
earth or in air, it is reduced (1) into water, which 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 251 

remains in the ground to become a part of the at- 
mosphere later on, as vapor, or to be absorbed by 
the roots of plants ; (2) into phosphate and car- 
bonate of lime, which remain permanently in the 
ground ; (3) into carbonic acid gas, nitrogen, sul- 
phuretted hydrogen, and ammonia, which escape 
into the air. . All these products are finally re- 
absorbed by the roots or leaves of plants, which use 
them for purposes of respiration and nutrition. 
They then compose the substance of plants. 

Thus the same material elements successively 
pass through a great number of different bodies. 
Hannibal may have had in his body the substance 
of Carthaginian soldiers ; the slave Spartacus that 
of Roman soldiers, and Cicero may have helped to 
form Caligula. My bony skeleton perhaps contains 
phosphate of lime from the body of peasants of the 
Cevennes, killed during Protestant wars by the 
king's men ; and your graceful body, my fair young 
lady, may contain the material substance of peas- 
ants of La Brie. 

It is therefore physically impossible that at the 
last judgment we can each appear arrayed in our 
former body ; its material substance having served 
to compose thousands of other bodies of men or 
animals in turn. 

The Catholic Church should certainly correct 
this tenet, for the honor of good common-sense. It 
would be enough to make human souls appear 
before the tribunal of God stripped of their material 



252 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

body. He who tries to prove too much, proves 
nothing. 

We will not carry these too easy arguments 
further. We admit that with faith anything may 
be accepted. You have faith,, the faith of y our 
fathers. Let us drop the subject ! 

Still, even admitting, thanks to the aforesaid and 
fortunate faith, the dogma of the last judgment, 
we can prove that the consolations offered by the 
Church to the dying «*nan are infinitely inferior to 
those assured to him by our system. In fact, ac- 
cording to the Christian idea, the elect and the 
damned occupy wholly different places, the latter 
being relegated to hell, the former lodged in paradise. 
But if my relative, my friend, my son, my brother, 
enjoy the glories of paradise while I am lodged in 
hell, I am parted for an indefinite period from those 
whom I loved in my lifetime. I must wait in order 
to renew the broken chain of my earthly affections 
for the hour of the last judgment, whose coming is 
most vague ; inasmuch as no one can say when and 
how the earth will end. Even then we must admit 
that after our judgment we shall all, good and bad 
alike, receive the same billet. Is not our system of 
cosmogony and theology more comforting, reunit- 
ing as it does directly after death those beings who 
have deserved to ascend into planetary space, where 
they will again find their friends, their families, the 
objects of their affections ? 

Then, again, what do you say to that eternity of 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 253 

punishment to which the Church condemns the 
sinner ? Is eternity, that frightful gulf, that insolu- 
ble problem, from which the human mind shrinks 
in horror, an element of which it is allowable to 
talk lightly ? Buddha himself dared not accept 
eternity : he said that nothing is eternal, — neither 
sin nor merit. 

Is not the eternal punishment to which the 
Church condemns us for a single ill-spent exist- 
ence the height of absurdity and odium ? Is it not 
simpler to admit that punishment for the guilty will 
consist, as we allow in the u To-morrow of Death," 
of again beginning his existence here below, until 
his perfected soul deserves to wing its way to the 
celestial realms, where it will join its friends, its 
relatives, the beings who are the object of its 
affections and sympathies ? 

As for the idea of the awful torments to which 
the damned are subjected, can anything be more 
monstrous ? To be eternally tormented for a sin, 
sometimes involuntary, — can you conceive of any- 
thing at once more horrible and more unjust ? 
Thomas Aquinas carries things to a yet fiercer 
degree of cruelty, when he says that the inmates 
of Paradise gaze with delight at the sufferings of 
the damned. 

" The blessed," says this doctor of the Church, 
" without leaving the place that they occupy, shall 
yet leave it in a certain sort, by reason of their 
gift of intelligence and clear sight, in order to con- 



254 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

sider the torments of the damned, and seeing them, 
they not only shall not feel any pain, but they shall 
be full of joy, and shall give thanks unto God for 
their own happiness, on beholding the unspeakable 
calamity of the impious." 

Thus the inmates of Paradise will be filled with 
joy when they see the agony of their friends, their 
relatives, their brothers, those whom they have 
loved, and whose absence they regret ! They will 
rejoice at their martyrdom, they will applaud their 
eternal torment ! 

To understand how so savage a doctrine could 
be conceived by theologians, we must know that it 
was promulgated in the Middle Ages, and bears 
the stamp of the customs of those barbarous times. 
Men must be struck with terror if they were to be 
kept beneath the yoke of the creeds of the Church. 
The doctrine of eternal punishment was consecrated 
by the fourth Lateran Council, and by the Council 
of Florence, in the fifteenth century, at which the 
doctors and representatives of the Greek and 
Latin churches met together. The fifth Lateran 
Council and the Council of Trent adopted it later. 
At the time when these assemblies were held, the 
customs and habits of Europe were marked by 
universal cruelty, and the fury of prelates against 
heresy knew, no bounds. 

How far such penal atrocities were from the 
thoughts of the mild and tender Jesus ! Could he 
have issued such fierce decrees, — lie who was all 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 255 

love, all charity, all devotion to his fellow-men ; 
he who dreamed of universal happiness for all 
nations, and who offered the wretched and the 
disinherited of the earth prospects of eternal joy 
after this life ? Every one knows that the Naza- 
rene was not the founder of the religion which 
bears his name ; that he wrote nothing, originated 
nothing ; that he confined himself to preaching the 
love of God, universal charity, sacrifice, devotion ; 
that he died quietly and without pretension, clearly 
understanding in advance that by preaching a re- 
ligion of gentleness and love he made himself a 
mark for the cruel wretches who had already slain 
a goodly number of reformers and prophets, his 
predecessors in Judaea. The Christian religion 
was created, not by Jesus, but by Saint Paul, who, 
having been one of Christ's bitterest foes, became 
his most fervent apostle, and founded Christianity 
as a religion. Saint Paul was not, as tradition 
tells us, suddenly enlightened on the road to Da- 
mascus ; lie was simply won over to the teachings 
and the person of Jesus by the irresistible power 
of the eloquence and placid virtues of that match- 
less charmer of souls. An unwearied preacher of 
the new doctrines, Saint Paul was made a martyr 
at Rome, by order of Nero ; but he had time to 
establish and strengthen the new-born religion. 

After him, and down to the Middle Ages, 
councils met to settle the dogmas, just as religious 
assemblies in the Orient had settled the principles 



256 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

of Brahminism and Buddhism. The chief dogmas 
were established at the Christian Councils of the 
Middle Ages, especially that which relates to eter- 
nal punishment, against which public sentiment 
has always protested, and which has ceased to 
alarm any one but children. 

With the reservations which we have made, we 
cannot but accept the principles of Christianity, 
which assert that our immortal soul will rise to 
celestial regions, there to receive the reward of 
its merits, with the direct assurance that a sov- 
ereign God will watch over its destinies after its 
earthly end. 

If therefore the dying man extend one hand to 
the priest, who lavishes upon him the consolations 
of the Church, let him offer the other to the 
philosopher, who opens to him prospects of a 
speedy rebirth in an abode where all is happiness 
and joy, power and peace. Let the Christian 
apostle and the freethinker unite their prayers in 
behalf of the dying. 

In the table that we gave of the four hundred 
millions of Christians scattered over the earth, we 
included Catholics, Protestants, members of the 
Russo-Greek Church, and various Christian sects ; 
for, in point of fact, in spite of the variety of 
forms of worship, the tenets are essentially the 
same in all these different branches of Christianity. 
Catholics, Protestants, members of the Greek 
Church, confess to the same principles concerning 
punishment and reward after death. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 257 

In France there is no difference between Cath- 
olics and Protestants, except in regard to the 
Mass, confession, the adoration of the saints, and 
the celibacy of the clergy. Aside from these 
questions, their belief is identical. 

And it is for such slight religious differences 
that so much blood has been shed, that such 
hatred has been heaped up ! Under Louis XIV., 
during the Protestant insurrection, the mountain- 
eers of the Cevennes and the peasants of the plains 
refused the king but one thing, — they would not 
go to Mass. They refused to hear the priest talk 
Latin ; they chose to pray in the temples where 
their fathers had prayed ; and it was for this 
alone that they fought so many bloody fights ! 

Since Catholics and Protestants agree on the 
question of future punishment and rewards, since 
both accept the last judgment, eternal punishment, 
heaven and hell, there is no distinction to be made 
between them, from the standpoint of our argu- 
ment, and of the comparison which we have es- 
tablished between our system and Christianity. 
What has been said of Christianity in the fore- 
going argument applies equally to Catholics, Prot- 
estants, and the Greek Church. 

We must, however, hasten to make an important 
observation in regard to Protestantism. All Prot- 
estants do not involuntarily revert toward Catholi- 
cism, as might be inferred from the preceding lines. 
French, English, and American Protestants may 

17 



258 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

be divided into two sects, — Orthodox, or Meth- 
odists, who are but latent adherents of Catholicism ; 
and liberal Protestants, who break distinctly with 
the doctrines of the majority of the members of 
the reformed religion. 

Liberal Protestantism is a form of Christianity 
which rejects the yoke of all revelation, of all or- 
thodoxy, which denies the supernatural, miracles, 
the divinity of Jesus Christ, and which, by its pub- 
lications and preaching, has opened the way for 
the modern school of religious criticism, which 
produced Strauss - in Germany and the illustrious 
Renan in France. 

The liberal Christian is, in the religious order, 
the direct disciple of Jesus Christ, as in the philo- 
sophic order the Cartesian is the disciple of 
Descartes, and the Kantist the disciple of Kant. 
Liberal Christianity may be summed up, philosophi- 
cally speaking, in deism or pantheism, under the 
shield of the morality and worship of Christ. 

M. Fontanes, formerly a Protestant preacher at 
Montpellier and Paris, now preaching at Havre, 
published, in 1867, "A Study of Lessing," in which 
he shows that this German writer was one of the 
fathers of liberal Christianity. To oppose freedom 
of discussion to the principles of traditional ortho- 
doxy ; to combat the reasoning of the State, or 
rather of the Church, in the name of the personal 
character of every conviction, — such was the task 
undertaken by Lessing. " Lessing was very justly 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 259 

called," says Fontanes, " the Luther of the nine- 
teenth century. He deserves this name for his 
valor and his love of truth. He it is who freed 
reform from the yoke of the letter, and brought it 
back into the path of freedom." 

Fontanes hails with admiration this return to 
the true principles of Protestantism, this emanci- 
pation of the Protestant conscience : " No more 
authoritative churches," he exclaims, " no more 
codes or barriers which enslave thought, no more 
imposed faith ; autonomy of the conscience, a sense 
of life, free movement of the spirit ! It is the pecu- 
liar feature of Protestantism that it combines with 
the Christian religion all the independence of sci- 
ence. The Protestant is always at the breach ; he 
is always examining and revising his opinions, his 
beliefs. Like the saint, he never feels that he has 
attained his object. We do not register ourselves 
as Protestants to bind ourselves later to the letter 
of a doctrine, and again become Catholics for the 
rest of our life." 

These words of Fontanes sum up the ideas 
which the eminent Parisian preacher, Athanase 
Coquerel, and his son Athanase unfolded in the 
pulpit of the Oratory ; those which they both up- 
held in the review called " The Disciple of Jesus 
Christ : a Liberal Protestant Review ; " those which 
Martin Paschoud maintained after them ; those 
which I shared with rapture, so soon as I gained 
the precious friendship of the two Coquerels, after 



260 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

attending their lectures and sermons, — ideas which 
I had, moreover, dimly entertained in my youth, 
from hearing the venerable preacher Michel, who 
was my religious instructor ; and my constant friend, 
Rev. Charles Grawitz, who was an honor to the 
Protestant Evangelical pulpit of Montpellier, and 
the noblest representative of Christian charity. ' 

Liberal Protestantism, it is needless to say, re- 
jects the doctrine of the last judgment. . I have 
heard Athanase Coquerel, the son, mock in the 
pulpit, with witty good-nature, at the literal resur- 
rection of human bodies ; and Charles Grawitz took 
the same question as the subject of one of his best 
sermons, which may be found in the collection of 
his works, published at Montpellier, by Boehm. 

Mahometanism. 

The vast region known as Arabia, and situated 
on the continent of Asia, is divided into Arabia 
Petraea, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Felix, or 
Yemen. Mecca and Medina are in Arabia Petrsea, 
or Hedjaz. 

It was here, early in the seventh century of our 
era, that that astounding revolution was first kin- 
dled, which soon fired half Asia and the North of 
Africa, as well as a great part of Southern Europe. 

A man who in his childhood led camels, and 
who in order to live found it necessary to enter a 
commercial house as overseer or head servant, was 
the instigator of this memorable revolution. But 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 261 

he possessed those intellectual and moral qualities 
which constitute great superiority over other men, 
and he had true genius. This man was Mahomet. 

Arabia is mentioned in the oldest histories. 
The primitive races inhabiting those countries were 
full of courage and intelligence, always animated 
by the sacred fire of a liberty compatible with 
human dignity and the maintenance of social laws. 
In their inaccessible mountains they never yielded 
to a foreign yoke. A close connection is recognized 
between the Arab tongue and that of the ancient 
Chaldeans, Syrians, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Abys- 
sinians. This was one of the causes which con- 
tributed most to the spread of Islamism throughout 
Africa and Asia. 

To understand the revolution which Mahomet 
brought about in Africa, Asia, and Europe, — a 
revolution which was at once religious, political, 
and literary, — we must know the chief events in 
the life of this extraordinary man. 

His real name was Mohammed. Born at Mecca, 
Aug. 29, 570 a. d., he was of very humble origin ; 
although Arab authors, who desired to endow him 
w^ith a lofty genealogy, make him descend from 
Abraham through Ishmael, that son of Hagar 
whom the jealousy of Sarah, according to the 
Bible, drove into exile with his mother out of the 
land of Canaan, whence they withdrew to Mecca. 
It is certain, in spite of this legend, that Moham- 
med was merely the youngest son of a poor family 



262 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

of Arabs from Mecca. Early left an orphan, he 
was brought up by the care of his grandfather, 
afterward by his uncle Abu-Talib, and in his child- 
hood he was employed in leading or keeping camels. 

The inhabitants of Mecca were, for the most 
part, merchants ; and Abu-Taleb conducted cara- 
vans from Mecca to Syria to carry on the trade 
between those two countries. Mohammed was thir- 
teen when he was taken by his uncle, with one 
of his caravans, to the city of Borsa, in Syria. 

On reaching Borsa, the caravan was received 
and generously lodged by a monk, named Baherah, 
of Arab origin. This monk, recognizing all the 
young Mohammed's fine qualities, did not hesitate 
to foretell a brilliant future for him. It is certain 
that the young Arab was even then remarkable for 
his gravity and honesty, his regular life, and the 
elegance and propriety of his speech. 

At the age of twenty he was hired as head 
servant or overseer, by a rich widow of Mecca, 
Kadijah, who carried on a large business with 
Syria. He made two journeys by caravan to Syria 
in Kadij ah's interests. She was so pleased with 
the services of her assistant that she married 
him. He was then twenty-five, the widow forty ; 
but his beauty was so striking, and the widow's 
affection was so strong, that differences of age 
and social position went for nothing. The mar- 
riage contract ran as follows : " Forasmuch as 
Kadijah loves Mohammed and Mohammed loves 
Kadijah . . ." 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 263 

He continued to manage her affairs, and carried 
on the business of merchant and trader at Mecca 
for many years. Nothing then proclaimed in him 
the future reformer. 

It was only at the age of forty that he began to 
be aware of his mission ; for several years he 
brooded over and tested his scheme in every detail. 
He learned his part ; he feigned to be inspired, and 
went to the cave of Hira, in the outskirts of Mecca, 
to dream of his approaching apostleship. 

At this time Arabia had no other religion 
than idolatry ; but there were many Jews, and 
Christians had carried the conquests of the gospel 
into that country. The constant quarrels of 
idolaters, combined with those of arch heretics, 
Jews, and Christians, troubled the mind of the 
Arabs, who wavered, undecided, between the three 
forms of worship. Moreover, they were divided 
into incoherent tribes, with no connecting link of 
any sort, and with no common government. The 
Koreish formed a political and judicial body, which 
gave the people laws and regulations ; but they did 
not succeed in imposing them upon the many 
tribes scattered throughout Arabia. Mohammed 
conceived the vast scheme of endowing his countrv 
with a single religion, and forming by its aid a 
political government applicable to the whole Arab 
people. 

He derived the principles of the religion which he 
planned to introduce from Christianity and Judaism. 



264 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

He did not hesitate to present himself as a 
prophet sent by God to reform Judaism, turned 
aside, he declared, since the time of Moses, from its 
natural course, and led astray by the false claim of 
Jesus to divinity. As for him, he was, undoubtedly, 
a mere man ; but being sent by God, he could reveal, 
in His name, a religion based on new and unassail- 
able truths. 

He found his first proselytes in his own family. 
The long incubations of his thought, the look of 
inspiration assumed by his face, under the influence 
of this mental struggle, struck his relatives ; and 
he began to exert the magic charm of his genius 
over them. He often visited the grotto of Hira, to 
converse, as he said, with angels, and he returned in 
a most exalted condition. One night he had a 
vision ; the angel Gabriel appeared to him, and said, 
offering him a scroll, " Read ! " 

" I do not know how to read," answered 
Mohammed. 

" Read," repeated the angel Gabriel, " in the 
name of the Most High, who created man out of a 
little clotted blood. Mohammed," added the angel. 
" you are the apostle of God ! " 

By this communication from above, Mohammed 
felt himself confirmed in his mission. 

Three years, however, elapsed, before he began 
his apostleship. For some time he was content to 
school his relatives and friends. His wife Kadijah, 
his slaves, his nephew Ali, and his father-in-law 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 265 

Abu-Bekr, who was afterward the first caliph of the 
Mussulmans, were the first converts to his faith. 

He then began to preach publicly in Mecca, with 
all the fire of his natural eloquence ; but his first 
discourses were ill received. The Koreish, who 
had the care of the temple at Mecca, looked with 
alarm upon a man who might some day dispos- 
sess them of their charge. They undertook an 
open war against the reformer, which forced 
him and his followers to leave Mecca. 

This was in 615, five years after the beginning of 
his apostleship. 

The death of Abu-Talib, and shortly after, that 
of his wife, Kadijah, were a great grief to the 
prophet ; in them he lost a strong moral support. 
His whole family were already banished from the 
city. He withdrew to Tai'f ; but even there he was 
pursued by insults and mockery, and attacked with 
showers of stones. 

Still, he ventured to return to Mecca. Having 
converted some of the Koreish to his cause, he 
went back to the city, where he was tolerably well 
received. He then used more moderation and tact 
in his addresses. His sermons became less fre- 
quent, but more direct. He respected idols, and 
spoke rather of God than of his own mission. 

He thus gained many proselytes. Tired of the 
disputes of Christian Arabs and of Christian con- 
troversies, many Arab tribes came out in his favor. 

During the same year he married six wives. He 



266 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

afterward raised the number to fifteen, although 
his religion forbade Arabs to marry more than four ; 
but we all know that the prophet had an unbounded 
love of women. 

If the allies of the new religion became more and 
more numerous, its enemies increased in the same 
proportion. The situation of Mohammed and his 
followers finally became perilous. A part of them 
sought refuge at Medina. Mohammed refused to 
follow them ; but he came near falling a victim to 
his courage. The Koreish decided on his death, 
and men were ordered to kill him the next night 
at his own house. Warned in time, he escaped the 
sword of the hired assassins, and withdrew to a 
cave in Mount Tour, three miles from Mecca. The 
assassins pursued him and reached the cavern ; but 
seeing a nest of doves on the wall of the cave and 
spider-webs hung across the entrance, they con- 
cluded that no one had entered, and went away. 

Mohammed had crawled into the cave on his 
hands and knees. 

Three days later, his followers brought him a 
camel and a guide, and he gained the territory of 
Medina, where his numerous allies in that city gave 
him an enthusiastic reception. 

This day, which answers to the 26th of June, 
622 a. D., became the first of the Mussulman era. 
The date of Mahomet's flight (Hegira) was, ten 
years afterward, established, by Caliph Omar, as 
the first day of the Mussulman year. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 267 

When Mohammed entered Medina, every one 
desired to lodge him. "Let my camel advance," 
said Mohammed ; "God will guide him." The 
camel stopped of his own accord ; lie knelt, and 
Mohammed stepped down. On the spot where he 
stopped, the first Mohammedan mosque was after- 
ward built, and still exists. 

The city, which was then called Jathrippa, took 
the name of Medina, — that is to say, the City above 
all cities. Medina and Mecca are sacred cities to 
all Mussulmans. 

Soon the new religion had its especial rites. A 
month of fasting was ordained ; a tax for the benefit 
of the poor was levied ; hours for prayer and for 
absolution were fixed. 

Then began the era of conversions by the force 
of arms ; and the prophet's mission assumed the 
warlike character which it had not hitherto worn, 
but which was, from this time forth, the great 
means of spreading Islamism. 

At Medina, Mahomet formed a small army, which 
grew continually, and at last constituted a consider- 
able military force. 

During the second year of the Hegira, Mahomet, 
with his little troop, attacked a caravan of Koreish, 
nine hundred strong, who threatened Medina, and 
utterly defeated them. 

Having become a military leader at the same 
time that he became a prophet, and emboldened 
by his first successes, he travelled through the 



268 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

countries of the various Arab tribes, sometimes 
using persuasion and sometimes the sword. 

Desiring to win the respect of his countrymen 
by the fame of his name abroad, lie sent messen- 
gers to the King of Persia, the King of Abyssinia, 
and the Emperor of the Romans, Heraclius, to 
inform them of his accession and mission. He 
went so far as to propose that they should embrace 
the new religion. 

The King of Persia tore the letter to tatters in 
a rage ; but the others replied with congratulations 
and gifts. 

These relations with great empires showed the 
reformer's power ; and Arabia recognized him, 
quite generally, as her leader. He resolved to 
strike a decisive blow at Mecca. In vain did the 
Koreish oppose his advance. He scattered them, 
and entered Mecca, almost without dealing a 
wound (630 a. d.). His first act was to shatter 
all idols. 

Some days after, anxious to give the sacred city 
new sanctity in his laws, he made a solemn entry, 
in the midst of a most imposing train. His sol- 
diers covered the country for miles, and he marched 
in triumph at their head. He and his escort walked 
seven times around the temple of the Caaba, taking 
the first three rounds at a quick pace, and the others 
at an easy gait. Since then Mussulmans perform 
their devotions in similar fashion at the temple of 
the Caaba at Medina. He ordered the muezzin to 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 269 

call the faithful to prayer, from the top of the 
tower of the mosque, as is still done, according to 
the Mussulman rite. 

The surrender of the Koreish, reputed the most 
learned of the Arabs, and the governors of Arabia 
in legal and religious matters, induced the adhesion 
of almost the entire country. Mahomet then sent 
soldier-apostles to the different tribes, to regulate 
the new form of worship and secure the preroga- 
tives of his political power. 

In 630 he left Mecca, with ten thousand sol- 
diers, to meet two mighty tribes who were march- 
ing against the city. He defeated them, and then 
besieged them in Taif, where the vanquished had 
fled. He was, however, obliged to withdraw after 
a useless siege of twenty days. 

The following year, the Christians of Nerdjran 
and all their clergy were compelled to pay a tax 
or embrace Islamism. 

In order to consecrate Mecca as the capital and 
centre of the Mussulman world, and as it were to 
complete his mission in the eyes of men, Mahomet 
proclaimed a great pilgrimage, which took place 
in 632. He slew with his own hand sixty-three 
camels, and set free sixty-three slaves. This was 
the pilgrimage of farewell (Hajj). The prophet 
felt that his end was at hand. 

It is claimed that poison shortened his life. 

He succeeded in winning recognition from the 
tribes which had thus far kept their independence. 



270 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

The most powerful of all was composed of Jews 
settled at Kaibar, the name of a fortress built on 
a high mountain, some six days' journe}' from 
Medina. The number of Jews who occupied it 
was swelled by those of their brothers driven by 
Mahomet from the neighborhood of Medina. They 
were headed by a chief named Machab, and dig- 
nified with the title of king. At the news of the 
danger which threatened them, they hastily made 
all their preparations, and leaving the open country, 
shut themselves up in the fortress. But Mahomet 
appeared sooner than they expected, at the head 
of fourteen hundred foot-soldiers and two hundred 
cavalry. He began by attacking and destroying a 
certain number of castles surrounding the fortress, 
and strengthening its defence. The inhabitants of 
these castles became his prisoners, and he began a 
siege of the place by means of battering-rams and 
such instruments of war as were then in use. 

Machab appeared, yataghan in hand, at the head 
of his troops. He was a sort of Hercules, reputed 
to be invincible. Ali, Mahomet's nephew, an- 
swered his challenge. Very skilful in the man- 
agement of arms, he contrived to lay the colossus 
low with his sword. The fortress was quickly 
captured and occupied; the booty was divided 
among the soldiers. 

Mahomet could only have congratulated himself 
on this expedition, had it not proved the speedy 
cause of his death. In one of the castles which 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 271 

he had besieged, and which surrounded the for- 
tress, was a woman, named Zainab, sister of the 
warlike Machab, who was killed by Ali during the 
siege of the fortress, as has been related. Zainab 
burned with desire to avenge her brother's death. 
Becoming the slave of Mahomet, who had observed 
her beauty, she conceived the idea of putting poi- 
son in a shoulder of mutton which she served up 
to him. At the first mouthful that he. swallowed 
Mahomet quickly spat it out, exclaiming, " This 
mutton warns me that it is poisoned ! " A guest 
who shared his meal died almost immediately. 

Mahomet refused to take any revenge for this 
cowardly attempt at murder. A new Holofernes, 
he was generous enough to pardon this second Ju- 
dith ; but the poison had entered his entrails, and 
the effects of it shortened his days. 

On June 8, 632 a. d., he once more appeared at 
the mosque ; but this expedition robbed him of his 
last remnant of strength. He went home, and 
never spoke again, except a few broken words. 
His head rested on the knees of one of his wives, 
his dear Ayesha. She suddenly felt his head grow 
heavier ; she looked more closely at him, — he was 
dead. His health had failed since the attempt to 
poison him, and his death was attributed to the 
consequences of that occurrence. 

The news of his death filled Medina with grief 
and distress. The people could not believe that 
the prophet was dead ; and on the other hand, his 



272 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

mission had lasted too short a time to allow the 
new religion to be universally substituted for the 
old one. • Some loudly inveighed against impos- 
ture ; others raised doubts of the talents of his 
successors ; and Mahomet, with his many wives, 
left no son.. Urged to come to some decision, 
the leaders of the army declared in favor of Abu- 
Bekr, in spite of his advanced age. 

Abu-Bekr collected the scattered pages of Ma- 
homet's writings, and made the collection known 
under the name of Koran, which is the gospel, we 
may say, the God, of the Mussulman. "When the 
di fie rent parts of the Koran were put together, 
they were read in the presence of all the leaders of 
the army, and its authenticity was thus established. 

Then, and not till then, did they proceed with 
Mahomet's funeral. His body was washed, per- 
fumed, covered with spices, wrapped in three 
shrouds, and after many prayers buried on the very 
spot where the prophet had expired. 

We know that Mussulman law forbids the 
reproduction of human features. No portrait of 
Mahomet therefore exists. And yet by putting- 
together various descriptions, left by many authors, 
of the features and person of the founder of Is- 
lamism, Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, in his " Life of 
Mahomet," published in 1865, succeeded in drawing 
the following portrait : — 

' ; Rather below the middle height, he was strongly 
built. His chest and shoulders were broad ; his hands 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 27 



o 



and feet remarkably strong, as was his whole frame ; all 
his joints were very small ; his limbs were fleshy without 
being unwield} 7 ; his neck was long, white, very grace- 
ful ; his head was ven r large ; his forehead well 
developed and always serene ; his nose was large and 
slightly aquiline, somewhat turned up at the tip ; his 
mouth was wide, with very sound white teeth set far 
apart ; his eyebrows were slender and separated b} 7 a 
vein which swelled in moments of emotion ; his brilliant 
black eyes were shaded b} T long lashes ; his hair, thick 
and jet black, fell in curls behind his ears and over his 
shoulders ; his beard and mustache were abundant. 
As is often the case with very robust men, he carried 
himself badly and stooped ; his walk, though light and 
quick, seemed rather heavj 7 , and he always moved as if 
descending a mountain. For the rest, his whole counte- 
nance, full of power, breathed gentleness and amiability, 
although he seldom looked people in the face while he 
talked with them. His general phj'siognom}' was very 
restful and calm ; his complexion neither pale nor rudely ; 
his skin very smooth, although tanned. In a word, his 
whole person, without being precisely beautiful, had 
much charm, and every one felt drawn towards him." 

After Mahomet's death, his successors, who took 
the name of Caliphs, continued to move from 
conquest to conquest. Holding the Koran in one 
hand and the sword in the other, they invaded, in 
turn, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and finally Spain. In 713 
they were in full possession of the last-named 
country. They even entered Gaul, and advanced 
as far as the plains of old Poitou. 

IS 



274 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

It would be a mistake to regard the Arabs of 
Mahomet's time as a wholly barbarous people. It 
would also be a mistake to think that their conduct 
towards the people upon whom they desired to 
impose the Koran was that of pitiless conquerors. 
Abu-Bekr, chosen in 632 by a majority of votes to 
succeed Mahomet, spoke as follows to the tribes 
assembled under the sacred banner : — 

" Go forth, valiant warriors, go forth, and know that 
in fighting for religion you obey God. Take care to 
do nothing but what is just and equitable ; those who do 
otherwise shall not prosper. When 3011 meet 3~our 
enemies, bear 3'ourself like brave men. If you are 
victorious, kill no women, children, or old men ; destroy 
no palm-trees, burn no grain, cut down no trees, do no 
harm to cattle, save to such animals as 3*011 are forced to 
kill for your food. In short, be exact in keeping faith- 
fulfy the promise 3'ou have given." 

The Romans laid waste the countries which they 
invaded. The} r crushed conquered nations beneath 
the burden of exorbitant tribute money. They 
destroyed the monuments of science and art almost 
everywhere. The Arabs behaved very differently. 
They were not swayed, as were the latter, by burn- 
ing greed. If they strove to subjugate nations, it 
was not so much to enrich themselves with the 
spoil as to compel them to accept the Koran. In 
moments of exaltation they may have burned a few 
theological works ; but nothing, in their conduct or 
their customs, betrays a systematic plan of destruc- 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 275 

tion. It is certain, on the contrary, that the 
Romans in Italy, at Carthage, and elsewhere 
burned a quantity of volumes of science, literature, 
and history, and that later, Christians, in their 
turn, imitating the example of the Romans, set fire 
to several great and rich libraries in the East 
during the Crusades. It is a well-established fact 
that the famous library at Alexandria was not, as 
has so often been declared, burned by Arab con- 
querors, after the taking of Alexandria by Omar. 
In fact, Albufaragus the historian, who makes the 
first mention of this event, lived six centuries after 
the taking of Alexandria. This writer is, more- 
over, refuted by others of less doubtful authority. 

It may be added that innumerable quantities of 
books serving to form great Arab libraries and to 
instruct Europe were taken from the library at 
Alexandria ; which goes to prove that it was not 
destroyed. 

At the time when Arab revolution, originating in 
the mountains of Arabia Petrasa, began to spread 
to Asia, Africa, and the islands of the Mediter- 
ranean, Christian civilization was rapidly declining. 
In Greece and Italy, scientific studies were aban- 
doned. Arts requiring imagination and feeling 
gradually lapsed into barbarism. True taste had 
disappeared. It was almost the same in Egypt. 
To be sure, the famous school of Alexandria, which 
had long shone with vivid lustre, still produced 
learned men, arithmeticians, grammarians, and 



276 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

commentators ; but the remnant of intellectual 
power was wasted, to no purpose, in dissertations 
and controversies on subtle or foolish distinctions, 
on metaphysical questions, which nobody under- 
stood. The creative genius that invents, develops, 
and perfects, was utterly dead at Alexandria, as 
elsewhere. 

In the physical order, at certain seasons of the 
year, storms — that is to say, great developments 
of atmospheric electricity — have the effect of reviv- 
ing languid Nature, by re-establishing on the earth's 
surface the conditions of equilibrium essential to 
the functions of life. So too, in the social order, 
revolutions, whose immediate consequences are 
sometimes so sad, have the effect of reviving a half- 
dead civilization, or arousing a new one when the 
old one is worn out. 

The Arabs, becoming powerful, carefully col- 
lected all monuments of science and art, precious 
fragments of which still existed in Egypt and 
Greece. They formed libraries, museums, and 
cabinets of natural history. They established 
schools, academies, and observatories. They 
devoted themselves to the study of astronomy, 
natural history, mathematics, and particularly 
medicine, which they found written out by Hippo- 
crates and Galen. The best Greek scientific works 
were translated, commented on, and sifted, among 
the Arabs, by minds of the first order. 

The caliphs encouraged trade, understanding its 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 277 

advantages. They had ships and a navy. Soon 
the Arabs were in relations, by land and sea, with all 
civilized nations. They made their way into India, 
China, and Japan, and gathered precious knowledge, 
of which the Greeks were completely ignorant. 

In Persia and Syria the Arabs found the works 
of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Galen, Dioscorides, etc., 
and translated them into their own language. 

It was thus that from India to Spain, from the 
shores of the Tigris to those of the Guadalquivir, 
scientific books spread rapidly among people who 
already had a literature, a religious philosophy, and 
who were not destitute of imagination. 

The intellectual level was accordingly raised 
wherever the Arabs succeeded in establishing 
themselves. 

This' great civilizing movement began in the 
eighth century. Just about the time when Charle- 
magne founded in France the schools called Car- 
lovingian, Al-Mansur founded a great university at 
Bagdad. 

Bagdad, a city of ancient Chaldea, built on the 
eastern shore of the Tigris in one of the finest 
situations in the world, in a few years became a 
flourishing city. It owed to the caliphs its splendor, 
its love of study, and the elegance of its customs. 
Oriental poets of the period speak of it under the 
name of "the city of peace." 

We must read in the history of the caliphs de- 
scriptions of the public buildings of Bagdad, in 



278 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

order to get any idea of its riches, and of the 
masterpieces of every sort which that wonderful 
city contained. 

Thanks to the caliphs Al-Mansor, Haroun-Al- 
Raschid, Al-Mamoun, and several others, who loved 
letters or learning, and themselves cultivated 
them with renown, the Arab school of Bagdad 
grew rapidly, and won great fame. It attained its 
highest degree of splendor in the ninth century 
after Christ. 

Al-Mamoun directed the construction of an astro- 
nomical observatory at Bagdad. By his order the 
length of an arc of the meridian was measured on 
the plains of Sennaar, in order to determine the 
true dimensions of the earth. 

Early in the eleventh century the Bagdad school 
gradually lost its importance, and at last died out 
entirely. 

Political revolutions incessantly harassed Asia. 
As early as 997, Mahmoud, the Ghiznevide, seceded 
from the Sultan, and founded a new empire. This 
secession became the signal for the division of the 
Arab empire into little independent sultanies, like 
those of Kerman, Aleppo, and Damascus, which, 
unfit for self-defence, soon became tributaries of 
Persia. 

In the midst of these political dissensions, the 
torch of learning did not go out. It merely changed 
place ; it deserted Asia. Henceforth it burned in 
Africa, and later in Spain. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 279 

Then the Cairo school was formed. Ben-Al- 
Mahdi, who lived at Cairo, tells us that the library 
of that city contained six thousand manuscript 
works on astronomy and mathematics. Elon- 
Tounis, who died in 1007, was the founder of 
this school. The most illustrious of his successors 
was Hassem-Ben-Hackem, an astronomer who wrote 
more than eighty books, made a vast quantity of 
astronomical observations, and wrote notes on 
Ptolemy's " Almagest." 

We have no exact information on the subject 
of the works of the Arab scientists of the Egyptian 
and West African schools. 

Spain, conquered by the Arabs, also speedily 
became the centre of a brilliant civilization. It 
was soon filled with splendid public buildings. 
Granada, Cordova, and Toledo were enriched by 
sumptuous palaces, glittering with gold and mar- 
ble. In all these structures it was elegance and 
taste, rather than a display of wealth, that called 
forth universal admiration. 

The perpetual contrast between extreme opu- 
lence and abject want, which saddens us in modern 
European cities, was not to be found in Arab cities. 
Neither the kindly customs of the Orient or the 
teachings of the Koran, at a time when the law of 
the prophet was scrupulously obeyed, would have 
sanctioned this. Temperance and toil readily placed 
ease and comfort within the reach of all among the 
lower classes. 



280 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

In every great city occupied or ruled by Arabs, 
there were schools to which pupils flocked. The 
Cordova school in Spain had a reputation which 
soon spread, not only throughout Europe, but also 
through a great part of Asia. People sent there, 
from all sides, for the most skilful professors, 
scientists, artists, and doctors. People went there 
from Egypt, Persia, even from Bagdad, although 
Bagdad had gained great fame for her cultivation 
of the arts and sciences. And one proof that Arab 
civilization would have spread readily throughout 
Western Europe had not the Arabs been driven 
out of Spain by Christians far less civilized than 
they, is the fact that illustrious Catholics, some- 
times even princes, went to Cordova to consult 
learned men, and to be treated by Arab doctors. 

In the tenth century Spain was certainly the coun- 
try which in all respects ranked first in Europe. 

Cordova then contained a population of three hun- 
dred thousand souls. Her schools were a source 
of wealth. Her palaces, her mosques, her public 
buildings, all proclaimed her a metropolis of science 
and art. Her great mosque, built in 770 under 
the government of Abder-Rahman, was an immense 
structure supported by a forest of marble, granite, 
and porphyry columns. It had nineteen naves, 
leading to an equal number of bronze doors. The 
interior of the building was lighted by forty-seven 
hundred lamps. It was something marvellous and 
fairy-like. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 281 

Civilization was at its height in the Orient, when 
the Arab States were unexpectedly disturbed by the 
Crusades, and by the reaction which followed in all 
countries invaded by Christian warriors. And yet 
Syria, Persia, Spain, and even Egypt continued 
long after to cultivate science and art. In reading 
the works of Casiri, D'Herbelot, Leo Africanus, and 
various others, we are truly surprised that such huge 
quantities of literary and scientific works could 
have been amassed in that country, where printing 
did not exist. When we look over the catalogue 
still preserved in the Escurial library, we are amazed 
at the vast number of Arab writers who sprang up 
in Spain alone, and at the quantity of works due to 
their pen. 

Thus, the revolution inaugurated in Arabia by 
Mahomet was not merely religious and military ; 
it was, at the same time, literary and civilizing. 

It now remains for us to give a brief statement 
of the principles of the Mussulman religion, or 
" Islamism," — the name given it by its followers, 
and which signifies " confidence in, absolute reliance 
on, the will of God." 

Islamism is based on the maxims contained in 
the Koran, which are regarded as so many reve- 
lations from God. As we have stated, the first 
caliph, Abu-Bekr, collected them at the time of the 
prophet's death, without troubling himself to intro- 
duce any chronological order, or any methodical 
arrangement of subjects. Mahomet did not preach 



282 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

any religious doctrine having a determinate body ; 
he confined himself to uttering, hap-hazard, and as 
circumstance's required, religious dogmas, moral 
rules, or principles of equity, which he offered as 
so many divine revelations. 

The Koran therefore is only a collection of 
sentences, without any connection, of the most hete- 
rogeneous description. Accordingly every Mussul- 
man can quote, to suit the occasion, such or such a 
verse from the Koran to justify his ideas, and to 
give a religious air to the most diverse actions. 
This, too, is the reason why schisms are so frequent 
in this religion, truly without foundation. 

Mahomet having appointed no form of worship 
and no .order of clergy, the Mussulman religion has 
neither clergy nor ceremonial. The Ulemas, or 
Zmaums, are jurists and professors ; and their con- 
sultations (fetwahs) are not theological decisions, 
but mere legal memoranda. People often speak of 
a Turkish or Arab mufti as if he were a bishop or 
a pope ; but the mufti is a wholly political and 
wholly secular character. 

As for the form of worship which is usually sup- 
posed to be practised in the mosques, it may be 
reduced to prayers, which every man repeats in his 
own home at a fixed hour, and which merely con- 
sists in the repetition of certain verses of the 
Koran. 

The repetition of verses from the Koran, there- 
fore, is the only liturgy of the Mohammedans. Man 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 283 

prays through the medium of the Koran, and not 
from the emotions of his own heart. 

Thus the idea of religious worship and a priest- 
hood, dear to Christians, is completely unknown to 
lslamism. Mussulmans have neither priest nor al- 
tar, but only a book. God did not become incarnate 
in a prophet, as Christians claim for Jesus ; and the 
prophet, on leaving this world, did not leave his 
spirit to his disciples, who were to establish a 
church, a clergy, ceremonials, and rights. God 
merely revealed his thoughts to a man-prophet, and 
the man-prophet collected them ; then he died, and 
God entered upon His rest without revealing Him- 
self further to mankind. Hence it follows that the 
Mussulman's only guide, whether religious or moral, 
is a single book, which it is his duty to study, crit- 
icise, and search, without looking for other light ; 
for God has spoken once, in the Koran, and He will 
not do so again. 

The moral code of the Koran is the best side of 
Mahometanism, for it abounds in exhortations of 
the most pressing nature in regard to the practice 
of good works. Precepts of the purest morality 
illumine the pages of Mahomet's book. 

From the religious point of view, Mahomet pro- 
claimed himself as the reformer of the religion 
revealed by God to His prophet Abraham, but 
afterward disfigured by Christian and Jewish 
priests. He acknowledged all the characters in 
the Bible as prophets sent by God ; but he blamed 



284: JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Christians for making a god of Jesus Christ. The 
Koran denies the divinity of Christ and his death 
upon the cross : l " The infidels," says the Koran, 
" did not crucify the Messiah ; they put in his place 
a man who strongly resembled him." 2 Christ is 
an apostle similar to those who came before him. 3 

The Koran asserts, in exact terms, the unity of 
God and the immortality of the soul. 

Mahomet was not the enemy of Jews or Chris- 
tians, whom he considered as the brethren of the 
Arabs. All his anger was directed against idola- 
ters. He required them, on penalty of death, to 
renounce their idols and worship one only God. 
" Whoever," says the Koran, " utters blasphemy 
against God, against His attributes, against His 
holy prophet, against this celestial book ; whoever 
denies the divine mission of Moses or of Jesus Christ, 
shall be put to death without mercy or delay." 

This passage is not tolerant, but it is only aimed 
against idolaters. 

Mahomet's religious doctrine is very simple. 
Belief in one God, omnipotent, omniscient, full of 
mercy and loving kindness, — this is his chief 
dogma. He believes, like the Christians, in the 
resurrection of the body and the last judgment. 
When the trumpet shall sound for the last judg- 
ment, the dead shall awake in their graves and 

1 Chap. lv. book i. 

2 Chap. iv. verse 166. 

3 Chap. v. verse 78 ; chap. vi. verse 100. 



COMPARISON OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 285 

gather in one spot. There the eternal book of fate, 
wherein are written the deeds of every man, will be 
opened, and sentence will be pronounced. The 
good will be led to paradise, and the bad to hell. 

Paradise and hell, with the Mussulmans, conform 
to the Christian idea of them : hell is a place of 
eternal torment ; paradise a region of unspeakable 
delights. We know that the joys of Mahomet's 
paradise are all sensual. The Mussulman Eden is 
the most marvellous region of which Oriental imagi- 
nation could conceive. It is a magnificent garden, 
watered by abundant streams and by rivers of milk. 
The air is loaded with sweet odors. The elect, 
gifted with immortality, are clad in silks and vel- 
vets, with bracelets of gold. Reclining on soft 
carpets, they are sheltered by enchanting shades 
formed by trees loaded with delicious fruits. Lovely 
children, who remain forever young, pour choice 
liquors to quench their thirst. Beyond fairy groves, 
enchanting landscapes are unfolded to their view. 
The men possess spotless virgins and houris of grace- 
ful shape. Their life passes in intoxicating feasts. 

Hell, on the contrary, is the home of never-dying 
flames. In the lowest depths of this gloomy abode 
grows the tree Zakkum, whose fruits look like the 
heads of demons, and are intended to feed the 
damned, whose drink is boiling water. 

God, however, may put an end to the torments of 
the damned. Less savage than Christian councils, 
the Koran foresees a limit to the sufferings of the 
inmates of the infernal regions. 



286 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Paradise is won by good works, humility, charity, 
fasting, prayer, chastity, patience, and pilgrimage 
to Mecca. 

To explain the difficulty which the elect find in 
entering the kingdom of heaven, Mahometans rep- 
resent, either literally or figuratively, the road that 
leads to paradise, as an iron bridge no wider than 
the blade of a sword. Those who by their good 
works deserve to cross this difficult viaduct, enter 
the abode of the blest ; the others fall into the jaws 
of hell. 

All this is clearly borrowed from the Christian 
legend of the last judgment, with its doctrine con- 
cerning punishment and reward. Having fully 
expressed our views on this head while writing of 
Christianity, we will not return to it. We think 
that we have shown the superiority of our theory 
of the rebirth and reincarnation of souls in the 
ethereal medium over Christian legend. Our criti- 
cism of the Christian last judgment, paradise, and 
hell will apply to Mussulman tenets, which are a 
mere copy of them. 

Judaism. 

In regard to Judaism, we can only repeat what we 
have just said of Mahometanism. Jews profess the 
same dogma concerning future punishment and re- 
ward, as Christians and Mahometans, — that is to 
say, they accept paradise and hell, preceded by God's 
judgment, a judgment itself delayed until the end of 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 287 

the world. As this is the only question in Judaism 
that interests us, we will not repeat, for that reli- 
gion, the criticisms which we have already made of 
the legend of the last judgment, in speaking of Chris- 
tianity, or the comparison which we established be- 
tween that system and ours. The point has been 
treated at ample length. Only, as the Jewish ques- 
tion just now holds a certain place in public thought 
by reason of the wholesale exile of the Jews from 
Russia, and the persecutions to which they are sub- 
jected in Germany, our readers may be glad of a few 
particulars as to this cosmopolitan nation, and the 
importance which they attach to religious practices. 

The following statistics are taken from the 
" Year-Book of Israelite Archives " for 1892. 

The total number of Israelites in France is about 
one hundred and twenty-six thousand, divided as 
follows, in round numbers : — 

Paris 50,000 

Nancy 4,500 

Bordeaux 3,000 

Lyons 2,200 

Marseilles 5,300 

Bayonne 2,500 

Vesoul 3,950 

Lille 2,800 

Besancon 2,600 

Algiers 15,000 

Constantine 9,000 

Oran (10,000 foreigners) 25,000 

Total 125,850 



288 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

They are officially divided into twelve districts, 
managed by as many consistories, under the juris- 
diction of a central consistory. 

Israelites in Paris are divided between two forms 
of worship, — the German and the Portuguese. 
The former retain in their worship the pronunci- 
ation of Hebrew in use in Poland and Germany ; 
the latter keep the pronunciation of Hebrew in 
accord with ancient customs in the South and 
East. There are also certain slight differences in 
their rituals. 

As to the number of Israelites in the entire 
world, statisticians disagree. The " Israelite Year- 
Book " gives the following statistics, based on reli- 
able data : — 

Europe contains 5,400,000 Jews, distributed 
among the various countries in the following pro- 
portions : Germany, 562,000 (Alsace-Lorraine, 
39,000); Austrian Hungary, 1,644,000 (Galicia, 
688,000); Hungary, 638,000; Italy, 40,000; 
Netherlands, 82,000 ; Roumania, 265,000 ; Russia, 
2,552,000 (Russian Poland, 768,000); Turkey, 
105,000; other countries, 35,000 (Belgium, 3,000; 
Switzerland, 7,000 ; Bulgaria, 10,000 ; Denmark, 
4,900; Spain, 1,900; Gibraltar, 1,500; Greece, 
3,000; Servia, 3,500 ; Sweden, 3,000). 

Asia contains 300,000 Jews. It is computed 
that there are 195,000 in Turkey in Asia (Pales- 
tine, 25,000) ; 4,700 in Asian Russia ; 18,000 in 
Persia; 14,000 in Central Asia ; 19,000 in India; 
and 1,000 in China. 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 289 

Africa has 350,000 Jews (3,000 in Egypt ; 55,000 
in Tunis ; 60,000 in Morocco ; 6,000 in Tripoli ; 
200,000 in Abyssinia). 

America contains 250,000, of whom 230,000 live 
in the United States. 

Oceanica has but 12,000. 

The sum total of the Israelite population 
throughout the entire world, accordingly, runs up 
to 6,300,000. 

In Paris the Jews have four great temples, or 
synagogues : the temple in the Rue N6tre Dame 
de Nazareth, which is the oldest in Paris, for it 
dates back to 1822, — it belongs exclusively to the 
Jewish community ; the temple in the Rue de la 
Victoire, opened in 1874, erected at the mutual 
expense of the city of Paris and the Jewish com- 
munity, — it has now become the chief synagogue ; 
the temple in the Rue des Tournelles, built under 
the same conditions, two years later. 

These three belong to the German ritual. The 
fourth is of the Portuguese ritual ; it was built with- 
out official participation, and was opened in 1877. 

The Jews have also smaller oratories in various 
parts of Paris, notably in the Avenue de la Motte- 
Piquet and the Rue Legendre at Batignolles, and 
in their different charitable institutions and schools. 

These temples and oratories are served by rabbis 
and public readers (chasan). There are about ten 
rabbis in Paris ; among them Mr. Zadoc Kahn, lately 
elected, and the chief rabbi of Paris. 

19 



290 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

We know that the rabbi does not regard himself 
as having any sacerdotal character ; the Jewish 
priesthood and sacrificial rites dying out at the 
fall of the temple of Jerusalem. The rabbi is the 
teacher of the law, the spiritual director, the min- 
ister of instruction and advice, rather than the 
special and necessary celebrant of worship ; worship 
can be celebrated without his aid. 

As for the reader, he is not a person invested 
with ecclesiastical character ; he is a master of 
ceremonies, who looks after the details, directs the 
singing and the choir. There are two or three for 
each temple. 

Nor have those persons usually called into fami- 
lies to perform the religious act of circumcision — 
the mohelim — any religious character. There are 
five of these in Paris. 

Like the Mussulman, the Israelite is deeply at- 
tached to his religion, and religion acts powerfully 
in its turn upon" social customs. It surprises some 
that the Jew never carries on any manual trade ; 
that he is invariably engaged in commerce or in 
some profession riot manual. The reason is to be 
found in the necessity under which he is of ob- 
serving his religious rites. No Jew can be appren- 
ticed ; for he could not, if he were bound to a 
master, give himself up to prayer, observe Sat- 
urday, or eat the flesh of animals killed according 
to Hebrew usage. As he can never be appren- 
ticed, he is never a workman. Hence he must 



COMPARISON OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 291 

needs devote himself exclusively to business, to 
finance, or follow one of the liberal professions. 

When an Israelite is removed from his usual 
surroundings, — if he is put in prison, for in- 
stance, — the rabbi hastens to him. But what is 
his object ? To take the necessary steps to insure 
the prisoner a supply of animal food killed by the 
sword. Nothing else troubles him half so much. 

We may laugh at this constant care on the part 
of the Jews to follow out the precepts of their 
religion ; we should rather admire them. Happy 
are the people who have a religion, who look upon 
it as good, and faithfully follow its commands ! 



CHAPTER XL 

Scientific Proofs in Support of the Theories set 
forth in this book. 

WOULD fain remove from the mind of my 
-*- reader the idea that the considerations set forth 
in this work are mere dreams of my imagination, 
a sort of romance of nature, intended to connect, 
by a general theory, the phenomena of earthly life 
with astronomic worlds. I will therefore give the 
scientific facts which led me to the system wrought 
out here concerning the destiny of man after 
death. 

The essential basis of all these views is clearly 
the principle of the existence of the soul and its 
immortality. Volumes have been written on this 
subject ; and after all, the conclusion has been pretty 
generally reached that the existence of the soul is 
not capable of proof. Mere sentiment, personal 
conviction, aside from all logical proof, may, it is 
said, establish the fact of the presence within us 
of an immaterial, indestructible principle, which is, 
in all languages, called the soul, or the inner sense. 

Such is not our opinion. The existence of the 
soul is, to our thinking, capable of proof. It can 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 293 

be proved oy various facts borrowed from the obser- 
vation of every day. 

The first of these facts to be cited relates to the 
impressions which man feels and expresses when 
he is subjected to the insensibility produced by the 
inhalation of ether, chloroform, or other agents 
now used in great numbers to cause insensibility in 
surgical operations. 

Go into a hospital ward as the surgeon lulls 
to sleep with chloroform or sulphuric ether some 
sufferer about to undergo a serious operation. 
After a few moments' inhalation of the stupefying 
fumes, the patient becomes absolutely proof against 
pain, and the surgeon can hew his flesh and he 
know nothing of it, utter no cry, show no smallest 
sign of feeling, either general or local. 

And while the steel divides, tears, cuts his mus- 
cles, wrings his nerves, removes a tumor, withdraws 
a sequestrum of bone, and sometimes amputates an 
entire limb, not only does the person operated on 
feel no pain, but he is most usually soothed by 
delicious dreams. He laughs, he sings, he sees 
smiling landscapes ; he is happy, and he expresses 
aloud his pleasure and content. The operation 
over, when he comes to his senses, he complains 
that he was too quickly snatched from his sweet 
dreams ; and it is with the utmost surprise that he 
sees the mutilation of his body. He was wholly 
unconscious of the operation ; he only knows that 
it was done by seeing the wound. 



294 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

This is an e very-day occurrence in the ordinary 
case of a surgical operation which occupies but 
eight or ten minutes. But within the last twenty 
years, surgery has made an immense advance. We 
no longer have operations of eight or ten minutes 
in length ; we have an instrumental labor carried 
on in the centre of 'living tissues, lasting an hour, 
sometimes two hours, and even more. Ovariotomy, 
now forever won by surgical art, consists, as we 
all know, in opening the abdomen, and removing 
from a woman an ovary which is too large, diseased, 
or lacerated. The operation lasts at least an hour 
and a half ; so that the chloroform or ether must 
be given several times to keep up insensibility. 

During ovariotomy performed under the influ- 
ence of ether or chloroform, the woman not only 
feels no pain from the division of the walls of her 
stomach, from the search for the tumor, its extrac- 
tion, or the lengthy dressing of the wounds which 
close this dreadful scene ; but she is usually lost in 
a perfect ecstasy of happiness. She sees her chil- 
dren, her nearest and dearest ; she smiles upon 
them, and in a continual dream she expresses by 
her exalted language the joy that she feels. 

The continued success of ovariotomy has led our 
surgeons to go on in the same way, and to-day 
laparotomy — that is to say, the opening of the 
walls of the abdomen at various heights — has be- 
come a common operation to facilitate the search 
for and extirpation of a tumor or an abscess, or the 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 295 

discovery of some internal obstruction. And not 
only is laparotomy used in the execution of an oper- 
ation indicated in advance, but it also serves as a 
simple method of diagnostic. To open the stomach 
of a man or woman, to settle an uncertain symptom, 
to make sure whether or no the liver, spleen, pan- 
creas, a part of the intestine, the bladder, or the 
kidneys are the seat of some disease, has now be- 
come a common surgical custom. The examination 
made, the walls of the stomach are sewed up again ; 
a large antiseptic dressing is applied, and at the end 
of a few days the patient is as well as ever. This 
bloody operation is very seldom fatal, and it almost 
always makes the diagnosis a sure thing. Now, 
diagnosis, treatment, and cure go hand in hand. 

The " Medical Union " reports, in May, 1892, the 
case of Dr. M of Paris, who, having long suf- 
fered from internal pains attributed to an intestinal 
cancer, and thinking himself doomed, nevertheless 
put himself in the hands of a friend who was a sur- 
geon, begging him to locate the seat of his trouble 
by means of laparotomy. The surgeon opened 
his stomach, reached the liver, and grasping the 
small lobe of that organ in both hands, discovered 
that it was the seat of a large abcess. The skilful 
operator plunged a bistoury into the abscess, drew 
off nearly a quart of pus, and sewed up the walls 

of the stomach. So that to-day Dr. M enjoys 

the best of health, and attends his clients with per- 
fect ease. 



296 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Again, a foreign body sometimes drops into the 
stomach and threatens the life of an individual ; 
for instance, a fork is swallowed, a foreign body 
is introduced into the stomach by the oesopha- 
gus, and will certainly cause a fatal perforation. 
The surgeon does not hesitate an instant ; he opens 
the walls of the abdomen corresponding to the part 
of the stomach occupied by the foreign body ; he 
then makes an incision in the stomach, and takes 
out the fork or whatever it may be. He sews up 
the walls of the viscus, then the skin ; and the pa- 
tient is saved. 

Such are the wonders of laparotomy, one of the 
most precious conquests of modern surgery, based 
on the use of antiseptic dressings. 

Operations of so grave a nature arc necessarily 
very long, especially if we include the time required 
for dressing the wound. Well, the mental state 
manifested during an operation of brief duration 
in a person under anaesthetics is continued during 
these masterly performances, which require consid- 
erable time, and necessitate the repeated applica- 
tions of the anaesthetic. During the entire time the 
patient does not for an instant cease to enjoy agree- 
able dreams, to feel happy, quiet, and serene, and 
to testify his joy by his words to all about him. 

What conclusion should we draw from this per- 
sistence of the manifestations of the soul, coinci- 
dent with the annihilation of bodily sensations ? 
We must conclude that the soul is independent of 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 297 

the body ; that we are composed of a material 
substance, and an invisible, active, and sentient 
spirit, which has nothing in common with the body, 
and which we call the soul. The anesthetic agent 
separates — as it were, severs — soul and body, 
whose union composes the human aggregate. It 
shows us the soul sentient, vibrant, expressive, 
while the body is deprived of all feeling. 

The phenomenon of anaesthesia, which makes the 
existence of the soul and the double spiritual and 
material nature of man so obvious, serves to ex- 
plain what must occur at the moment of death. 

A man in a state of anaesthesia is, so far as mere 
feeling goes, a sort of corpse ; he is as unconscious 
of all outward impressions as a dead man ; he is a 
temporary corpse. When the end of life comes, the 
corpse state is final and positive ; and as the 
temporary corpse retained and still held fast within 
it the spiritual principle, even enhanced in its mani- 
festations, the actual corpse must also retain for a 
certain space the soul, or spiritual principle. 
Whether it be, indeed, the surgeon's knife which 
hews the body of a living man, lost in a state of 
anaesthesia, or whether it be the gnawing of earth- 
worms, or of animalculae destroying organic tissues, 
or of legions of microbes, which devour the actual 
corpse, both are equally insensible to outward 
agents; and the actual corpse, as well as the 
temporary one, retains the impressionable soul for 
some time. 



298 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

Dreams are another proof of the existence of the 
soul. When we yield to sleep, the majority of our 
senses and physiological functions are abolished ; 
life, taste, hearing, smell, touch are suspended ; 
sensibility is dulled. Circulation, respiration, and 
absorption alone go on in a sleeping man. And yet, 
in that body stripped of most of its vital attributes, 
something endures, and often even manifests a vast 
activity : this is thought. In dreams our thoughts 
are multiplied, and follow in strangely rapid succes- 
sion. The mind not only continues to act, but it is 
sometimes singularly vigorous. The body is torpid, 
motionless ; while the intellect is stimulated, and 
works with matchless energy. 

The surgeon Philip Ricord, mentioned in an 
earlier chapter, once told me an anecdote of him- 
self, but little known and yet very interesting. He 
was nightly beset with awful dreams, which took 
possession of him the instant that he fell asleep. 
He would then utter loud shrieks, grow angry, and 
give way to every violence ; so that his manservant 
was obliged to watch with him all night, to restrain 
and quiet him. When morning came, he would 
wake calm and cheerful. Nobody guessed, from 
seeing him busy at the hospital or in his office 
with his usual occupations, that his nights were 
disturbed by fearful nightmares. His health was 
not impaired by this singular nervous anomaly. 
He died at the age of eighty-nine, having always 
retained great bodily vigor, and the reputation of 
being one of the wittiest men of his time. 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 299 

Natural somnambulism, which is an astonishing 
and inexplicable form of dreaming, shows us, even 
more amply, the intellectual faculties working with 
strange activity, when sleep has done away with 
most of the physiological functions. A natural 
somnambulist does not see, hear, or feel, since he is 
asleep. But all at once he speaks, hears, sees, 
walks, acts, writes, composes speeches, verses, 
music, mathematical calculations, dramas, archi- 
tectural plans or sketches. He performs manual 
labor, and not unskilfully ; he walks on the roofs 
of houses, without a misstep, all to the great amaze- 
ment of those who follow him and watch his move- 
ments with equal surprise and anxiety. He does 
not hear with his ears ; he does not see with his 
eyes, which are closed ; and his sensations of touch 
do not come from the organ of touch, the skin. 
The mind alone is active. 

Does not such a state show us with glaring 
obviousness the distinction between body and soul ? 
The body is deprived of its senses, while the soul is 
in full enjoyment of itself. 

The body therefore is merely the covering of the 
spirit, the transparent veil of the soul. By them- 
selves, our senses would give us no perception, if 
the soul did not exist. It is the soul that feels, 
hears, sees, and acts. The retina of the eye, 
which receives an impression of images ; the 
mucous membrane of the mouth and nose, which 
gives us impressions of taste and smell ; the skin, 



300 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

which directs touch, — arc only skilful anatomical 
arrangements meant to transmit a sense of out- 
ward things to the soul, the true sovereign of the 
human aggregate. When the senses are silenced as 
in a state of anaesthesia, in sleep and in natural 
somnambulism, the soul acts alone, and dispenses 
with the aid of the senses and the absent functions. 

Hypnotism, which has been so much discussed 
for the last ten years, is nothing but a more marked 
degree of somnambulism, artificially produced 
and maintained. Under the influence of certain 
manoeuvres, as practised by the magnetizers of 
earlier times, or more simply, by the fixed contem- 
plation of a shining object, and particularly by an 
acquired habit, a person falls into that extra- 
ordinary state which we call hypnotism (from 
virvos, sleep), to which modern physicians have 
given so much study. In this state sensibility is 
abolished. We may pierce the subject with 
needles, prick his skin with sharp instruments, burn 
him, and even perform upon him surgical opera- 
tions, without his showing the least sign of paiu, 
without a change in his expression. And not only 
he does not feel any pain, but, like a person under 
the influence of chloroform, one who has been 
hypnotized speaks, answers questions, and bears 
himself as in the waking state. 

A person who is hypnotized often falls into a 
catalepsy. At the" clinics of Charcot, at the 
Salpetriere, we see men or women, at the mere 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 301 

sound of a tom-tom or a tuning-fork, become 
suddenly cataleptic, — that is to say, their limbs 
stiffen, they take the most singular, most painful 
attitudes, and keep them up a very long time with- 
out showing any fatigue. Wounds, pricks are a 
matter of utter indifference to them ; their living 
bodies are like corpses. And yet these corpses 
speak, answer, express the thoughts that occupy 
their mind, or follow the bent which we choose to 
give them. Do you not plainly see here the separa- 
tion of soul and body ? 

Suggestion is often manifested in the hypnotic 
state. We know how much thought modern 
physicians and physiologists, as well as magistrates, 
moralists, and students of nature, have devoted to 
this singular moral state. 

What phenomenon, indeed, is stranger than that 
of suggestion ? The person hypnotized, being 
questioned by the doctor or hypnotizer, obeys, with 
perfect passivity, whatever orders may be given 
him. He walks, talks, acts, according to the com- 
mands laid upon him. He is like a slave in the 
hands of a master. 

We also know that spoken suggestion may give 
place to mental suggestion ; that is, without uttering 
a word, the physician or the magnetizer may make 
his wishes known to the subject, and compel him to 
perform whatever acts he chooses. He is made to 
drink a glass of water, which he is told is cham- 
pagne, and he swallows it with delight. He is 



302 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

shown fruit which he is told is poison, and he turns 
from it in horror ; etc. 

Let us add that certain operators have succeeded 
in issuing their orders to those they hypnotize 
without speaking a word to them. The magnetizer 
thinks ; and the person magnetized, understanding 
his thought, executes the order which was given to 
him mentally. Neither the one nor the other has 
any means of communication except their mutual 
thought ! 

I do not know how hypnotism and suggestion, 
whether simple or mental, are to be explained ; I 
even doubt whether the true explanation will ever 
be found, and consider that this secret will forever 
remain one of the mysteries of nature to be added 
to so many others ; but it is most evident that this 
strange physiological state gives us the most com- 
plete proof possible of the existence of the soul. 
The bodily functions are suppressed ; those of the 
soul continue to act ; and in the case of mental 
suggestion, we have two souls in relation, without 
any intermediary means of communication. 

The fact of the existence of the soul is, we nope, 
amply proved by all the foregoing considerations; 
and this point gained, we proceed with our 
argument. 

In the material world nothing is destroyed, noth- 
ing perishes ; everything is indestructible, eternal. 
Chemists, from the time of Lavoisier, have taught 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 303 

us that there is never any destruction, but a mere 
transposition of matter, in combinations and de- 
compositions of simple or compound substances. 
So, too, throughout Nature, living or dead, nothing 
is destroyed, nothing disappears ; matter changes 
its position, that is all. The sand of the desert is 
nothing but the result of the disintegration and 
division by water of the rocks round about ; their 
composition proves this. The sand that covers 
the seashore has the same origin ; it comes from 
the disintegration of the rocks along the coast. 
Here we have pebbles ; there, sand ; but pebbles 
and sand are of the same chemical composition as 
the rocks close by. 

The air which we breathe is the same which was 
breathed by men when first they appeared upon 
this globe. Indeed, the oxygen of that air has 
served, in presence of the solar light, for hundreds 
of centuries, for the respiration of primitive man, 
of animals and plants, as well as for the alteration 
and destruction of rocks. But animals and plants 
have restored oxygen and carbonic acid to the air 
by their normal physiological functions, — that is, 
by their nutrition in darkness. The nitrogen of 
the air, which entered temporarily into the compo- 
sition of plants and animals, was set free later on 
in consequence of other vital actions. Thus the 
oxygen, carbonic acid, and nitrogen, of which the 
air is made up, are not destroyed, but merely 
change their places upon the earth. 



304 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

When the body of a man, an animal, or a plant is 
abandoned to corruption, it gives out carbonic acid 
gas and nitrogen, compounds of hydrogen and sul- 
phur. But these very combinations serve to com- 
pose other living bodies ; and these latter after 
death will render back the same gases ; so that the 
oxygen, carbonic acid, and nitrogen are never 
destroyed, and still make up the air that we 
breathe. 

As for water, which covers three quarters of the 
surface of our earth, and which, reduced to vapor, 
floats in the air as clouds or mist, we can readily 
prove that the same permanence holds true of it. 
It is not difficult to show that the fresh water of 
rivers and lakes, as well as the salt water that fills 
the beds of seas, is indestructible, immutable ; and 
that the water which we drink, that which makes 
up the clouds, that which flows in the bed of rivers 
or seas, is the same which our remote ancestors in 
primitive ages drank and used. 

This fact is made obvious by what is known in 
meteorology as the " distribution of moisture " over 
the globe. 

When moist air, driven by the wind, rises along 
the sides of a mountain, it is chilled, and at a 
certain height it becomes cloud or mist. Rising 
higher, this cloud melts into rain. If this rain 
falls at a very great height, it is frozen and covers 
the top of the mountain with snow. The cooling 
of the air which occurs in these high regions is due 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 305 

to the rarefaction which it necessarily undergoes 
in the higher strata of the atmosphere. A few 
hundred yards more suffice, at this elevation, to 
lower the temperature by one or more degrees. 
Thus we can understand what a vast quantity of 
snow must result from the condensation of the 
vapors contained in those great volumes of air 
laden with aqueous vapor which the winds bear 
from rivers and streams to the peaks of the Alps, 
Cordilleras, and Himalayas. 

The water which falls on the heights is filtered 
through the earth ; it reappears later on and lower 
down in the form of springs, which descend into 
the valleys. 

At the same time the annual melting of the 
snows which crown lofty peaks, abundantly feeds 
the little rivers running down from the mountains ; 
so that after the winter floods, which result from 
the rains of that season, come the summer floods 
caused by the melting of the snow. 

Thus huge masses of water are constantly circu- 
lating between the atmosphere and the earth ; they 
fall continually as rain and snow, and incessantly 
ascend as mists. This eternal interchange pro- 
duces the " distribution of moisture " over the 
globe, the essential instrument of its fertility. 

The salt waters of oceans and inland seas are no 
exception to this general law of exchange between 
earth and air. The ocean, that huge liquid res- 
ervoir, swallows up in its vast maw the offerings 

20 



306 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

brought to it by living streams which have bathed 
two continents ; and it returns these same waters to 
the air in the form of vapors, which again descend 
to earth as rain, snow, or dew. These waters re- 
turn to the ocean through the channel of rivers and 
streams ; and thus we have that eternal cycle, that 
endless journey, which makes these same waters 
serve for the support and renovation of organic 
life on the earth. 

Thus, water, whether fresh or salt, is no more 
susceptible of destruction than rocks and the ele- 
ments of the air. Like them, it does but change 
its place, but travel from the earth to great heights ; 
but it endures such as it was constituted at the 
creation of the world. 

When a plant withers and is scattered by the 
wind, do you think that the chemical elements 
which once composed it are destroyed ? No ; the 
products of their natural decomposition — carbonic 
acid gas, nitrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, carbon- 
ated hydrogen, water, and mineral substances — are 
borne away by the wind, and reuniting later else- 
where, form new plants. The vital spark which 
created the first plants by fecundating the germs 
of their seeds still endures and gives birth to new 
vegetable life from the old elements. Let but the 
spring sun warm it, and the living principle con- 
tained in the seed once more begins to exert its 
mysterious influence ; other plants grow, and are 
covered with leaves, buds, and flowers. Whether 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 307 

they vegetate at one point or another on the earth's 
surface, the primitive elements of those plants 
remain, and nothing can destroy them. They travel 
from one plant to another, but do not disappear. 

The same considerations may be applied to the 
body of men and animals. 

Thus, nothing in Nature is wiped out of existence, 
nothing is destroyed. Upon the earth there is noth- 
ing old and nothing new ; all is eternal and inde- 
structible. That which we call new is a mere 
figure of speech which we have invented to aid the 
weakness of our understanding. But in the crea- 
tion everything is permanent. A star may be 
dashed to pieces in the depth of space ; a new star 
will be made of the fragments. The parts which 
compose a planet can no more be destroyed than 
those that form a flower. We make a distinction 
between a planet and a flower, because one is 
greater than the other ; but to Nature and to God, 
both infinite, there is neither great nor small. 
Tree and insect, grain of sand and mountain, infu- 
soria and whale, kernel of wheat and man, are all 
of equal importance in the sight of Nature and of 
God. 

In short, nothing perishes in the organic world, 
any more than it does in the mineral world ; but 
everything changes and is outwardly modified. 

But if nothing perishes on our earth, the soul 
can no more perish than can the air, water, plants, 
animals, and rocks. It must endure like them. 



308 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

The soul, having the conditions of being and a 
life opposite to that of the body, cannot decay after 
the manner of the body. The body perishes, re- 
storing its elements to the earth ; but the soul, 
whose forces are the opposite of those of matter, 
cannot be destroyed as is the body. A simple, im- 
material entity, it must endure in its integrity. A 
spiritual entity, when it is set free from the body, it 
must reappear entire in the medium where it is 
released. 

J. J. Rousseau says in " Emile " : — 

" When the union of soul and body is broken, I con- 
ceive that the one may be dissolved and the other pre- 
served. Why should the destruction of one entail the 
destruction of the other? On the contra^, being by 
nature so different, they are b}* their union in an un- 
natural state ; and when that union ceases, they both 
return to their natural condition. The active substance 
recovers all the force which it used to move the passive 
and inert substance. Alas ! m}- defects make me but 
too well aware of it; man but half lives during his life, 
and the life of the soul only begins with the death of 
the body." 

Leibnitz, in his " System of Theology," indulges 
in the following argument : — 

" The soul is a substance. Now, no substance can 
wholly perish without actual annihilation, which would 
be a miracle ; and as the soul has no parts, it cannot 
even be divided into various substances. Therefore 
the soul is naturally immortal." 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 309 

Thus the soul not only exists, but is endued 
with immortality and indestructibility, in its qual- 
ity of spiritual being. 

We have a right to grant the immortal soul the 
power of removal, of changing its residence in the 
universe ; and we are not forbidden to suggest, as 
the Hindoo religion and the ancient Egyptian reli- 
gion allow, that the human soul may pass through 
various incarnations, and thanks to a series of 
transmigrations enacted in celestial space, may 
constitute a train of higher beings, coming after 
humanity in the hierarchy of living bodies. 

The system evolved in the " To-morrow of Death," 
as well as in the present work, is not therefore the 
product of idle reveries or a flight of the imagina- 
tion, but it rests upon a succession and a chain of 
scientific facts. 

We admit that it is in interplanetary space that 
the soul, on leaving its earthly abode, will be incar- 
nated in fresh living types. This is the place to 
explain why we assign the vast interplanetary 
regions to the human soul for its dwelling. 

Ancient physicists said that " Nature abhors a 
vacuum ; " and perhaps this idea was not so ingen- 
uous as we now hastily imagine. In fact, every 
medium is inhabited by living beings, and indeed it 
is often the abode of a superabundant population. 
The earth's surface feeds a vast quantity of animate 
beings of all sizes, — some visible, others only recog- 



310 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

nizable through a microscope, on account of their 
extraordinary smallness. There is not a single 
point of the surface of the globe, when covered by 
vegetation, which does not contain organic beings, 
animal or vegetable, visible to the naked eye or to 
the eye armed with a microscope. 

The air, like the surface of the earth, is occupied 
by visible animals and invisible animalculae ; it is 
filled with vegetable spores and animal germs. 
Through the air are transmitted the infectious 
germs of epidemic diseases ; in the air float the 
eggs of many inferior beings, as well as vegetal 
seeds to be developed later on the earth. 

Fresh waters contain a quantity of visible beings, 
plants, fish, mollusks, articulates, zoophytes, and 
microscopic organisms, not to be distinguished by 
the naked eye, but recognizable with a magnifying- 
glass. 

The seas, which occupy three quarters of the sur- 
face of the globe, have also their animal population, 
abundant and varied. Naturalists believed, but a 
short time since, that no living being existed in the 
lowermost depths of the sea, by reason of the enor- 
mous pressure from above and the absence of all light 
at such great depths, We accepted this theory, 
and it will be found stated as a fact in my works. 
Scientific progress now utterly contradicts natur- 
alists upon this point ; and they in turn loudly ap- 
plaud, for a whole world of submarine beings of an 
order hitherto unsuspected is offered for their study. 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 311 

We now know, thanks to the many submarine ex- 
plorations and recent dredgings undertaken by dif- 
ferent well-informed nations, that the bed of the 
sea contains an animal population as abundant as 
that which swims on higher levels. The fish, zoo- 
phytes, mollusks, etc., which occupy the lower re- 
gions of the sea, under fearful pressure, in absolute 
darkness, are blind, and possess a special organiza- 
tion which enables them to live in spite of the 
tremendous pressure which they endure. 

Thus, all natural media, whether solid, liquid, or 
gaseous, are filled with living beings. Why should 
the ether — that is, the fluid which occupies inter- 
planetary space — be destitute of them ? Why 
should the vast spaces which divide the stars one 
from another be empty ? 

It is in virtue of this consideration that we take 
interplanetary ether to be the abode of re-arisen 
man. We might no doubt give him other planets 
than the earth for his home, and suppose that 
the superhuman being journeys from planet to 
planet, in the course of his successive metempsy- 
choses. But in our opinion the number of planets 
in our solar system is too small to afford shelter to 
so many living phalanxes. We prefer to place 
them in ether, whose extent is limitless. Let us 
add that this it is that leads us to give the super- 
human being the wings which Christian tradition 
attributes to angels and cherubim. 

In our system, the superhuman being, dwelling 



312 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

in interplanetary regions, is made up of a soul and 
a very airy body. This is the logical consequence 
of the organism peculiar to earth-born man : it is 
by analogy that we give to the superhuman being 
the physical constitution of earth-born man. 

We next admit that the interplanetary individual 
dies and is born again, to pass into a new body, of 
yet more exquisite organization. This, again, is the 
logical sequence of what goes before. 

As the final term of a long series of existences, 
we believe that the dweller in ethereal realms will 
end by falling into the sun, which absorbs him, and 
that he becomes a part of the radiant orb. We 
described at some length, in the " To-morrow of 
Death," the universal part which the sun plays in 
terrestrial phenomena. The source of light, heat, 
electricity, magnetism, and motion, the sun is 
probably also the cause of organic life and of the 
intelligence peculiar to living beings. Thus we 
admit that the central orb of our world is the seat 
of divine power, that which regulates the movement 
of the planets, as well as the evolution of life 
and of souls, in the beings inhabiting them. Hav- 
ing become a part of the " Divine Sun," the super- 
human being, therefore, thus takes part in the 
government of the solar world to which he belongs. 

We are guided in this thought by a considera- 
tion of the immensity of the part allotted to divine 
authority. It seems to us impossible that a single 
personality can suffice for the direction of the entire 



SCIENTIFIC PROOFS. 313 

universe. Each sun, each star must be the seat of 
some divinity, who rules its existence ; and the 
supreme God, Jehovah, must reside at the central 
point of the combined orbits of all solar systems, at 
the mysterious point around which the stars, with 
their train of orbs and satellites, revolve. Emana- 
tions from the different stars, converging at this 
one point, in our opinion, compose the sovereign 
God. Indeed, unity cannot exist in the government 
of the worlds, by reason of the vast extent of space. 
Only a collectivity of divine powers can carry out 
the functions of the general government of the 
universe. 

The reader will excuse the boldness of such 
views. In striving to explain the destiny of man 
after his death, we rely upon scientific reasoning 
and analogy. If we are mistaken, the blame rests 
with that moral instrument called logic, and with 
its consequence, philosophical analogy. 

Such are the considerations, borrowed from 
natural and cosmic science, which have guided us 
in the conception of our system. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Summary and Conclusions. 

"I T seems proper, in closing, to sum up the facts 
-■- and ideas scattered through this volume, and 
to deduce their natural consequences. 

From our review, in preceding chapters, we find 
that none of the i*eligions now existing is fitted to 
banish from the heart of man the forbidding fears 
inspired by the idea of death. Neither Buddhism, 
with its distressing nihilism ; nor Brahminism, 
with its hopeless fatality ; nor Christianity, with its 
indefinitely delayed last judgment ; nor Mahome- 
tanism, nor Judaism, which merely reproduce the 
old legend of heaven and hell, derived from anti- 
quity and Christianity, — can inspire a man with 
courage to face with steadfast eye and quiet soul 
the moment of his end. Modern philosophy alone, 
based on science and reason, can dispel his fears. 
It shows him the reward instantly bestowed for a 
virtuous and honorable life. It asserts that he 
who has deserved it by his honesty, by upright 
practices, by the constant application of his free 
will to just and virtuous deeds, and by the cultiva- 
tion of his mind and increase of his knowledge, 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 315 

shall enter, after his earthly end, into a new 
domain, where he shall assume the attributes of a 
superior being, — what we have called the " super- 
human being " and what the Church styles " angel ;" 
and that he shall pass the happiest of existences in 
the celestial abode, with the prospect of a continued 
growth of his intellectual and moral faculties. 

As we have said, the intellect of man, born again 
in glory, will grow in proportions not suspected by 
him. The universe will appear to him as it really 
is, with its radiant sun, with its planets and their 
satellites, composing each sidereal world. He will 
plainly see the heavenly orbs moving in their orbits, 
and comets furrowing that harmonious whole, with 
their brilliant trains. The exact sciences will have 
no secrets for him. Physics will tell him the laws 
of the mutual action of bodies one upon the other ; 
chemistry the reason of reactions and the mode of 
formation of new compounds by the direct vision 
of the architectural arrangement of molecules. 
Mechanics will be made plain to him, with the 
general mathematical cause of the movement and 
equipoise of solids, liquids, and gases. 

Living nature will have no more mysteries for 
him than inanimate nature. Organic life in 
plants, animals, and man will be laid bare to him, 
in its mechanism, in its essential cause, and in its 
results. 

Social iniquities, of which the earth affords us a 
sad picture, will be unknown in that happy home, 



816 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

where all will be love, peace, and fraternity. Hate, 
jealous dissension, which are the attributes of 
earthly society, will be banished thence. Justice, 
absolute equity will govern the actions of the 
inhabitants of planetary ether. 

Our relatives, our friends, those whom we love, 
and whom death has snatched from us, will meet 
us in our second existence ; and we shall renew the 
relations of affection, tenderness, sympathy, and 
devotion which we kept up with them here. 

The natural faculties which society frequently 
condemns to lie idle in earth-born man will be given 
full play, and we shall be exempt from the torture 
which consists in busying ourselves with things 
which we dislike, and neglecting the occupations 
toward which we are stronorlv drawn. 

Tasks begun on earth and interrupted by death 
will be resumed ; so that efforts put forth here and 
results attained will not be lost, but will serve to 
carry on and complete the schemes which death cut 
short. 

We shall enter into relations with the great men 
who have honored humanity, and whom we desire 
to know. The heroes who left a brilliant record in 
history will be ready to talk with us, and to tell us 
the secret of their triumphs and glory. 

Finally, if we continue in our second life to prac- 
tise good works, to keep our mind in a state of 
progress, 'to increase our knowledge, to bring our 
soul into a state of absolute perfection, we shall 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 317 

deserve to rise to a higher sphere in the heavenly 
domain, where beings have yet greater intellectual 
power and more numerous faculties. 

By losing more and more of the material ele- 
ment which forms a part of their being, the inhabi- 
tants of those high spaces may ascend another 
round of the ladder in the hierarchy of the elect ; 
just as a balloon rises higher and higher in the air 
as it throws out the ballast which delayed its 
ascent. 

In the upper regions of the sky, which will be 
the scene of our third existence, the proportion of 
the material element in the superhuman being 
will be more and more reduced ; his body will be- 
come more and more refined and aeriform, and 
his soul endued with more and more exquisite 
qualities. 

After a new series of these celestial progressions 
and promotions, whose number and duration no one 
can possibly fix, our souls, attaining to a state of 
pure essence, will finally enter the central orb of 
our earth, the sun, whose inhabitants, possessed of 
immortality, will form a part of the divinity who 
rules over the government of this astronomic 
system. 

Such is the career of light and glory reserved, in 
our opinion, for the beings who spring from earthly 
humanity and planetary humanity. 

But to merit such sovereign joys, man should 
devote himself throughout his sojourn upon earth 



318 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

to improving himself without pause, to purifying 
his soul, to loving his fellow-men, to doing good in 
every direction, to increasing his knowledge and 
the compass of his mind. He who, on the contrary, 
perseveres in his state of immorality, vulgarity, in- 
justice, or ignorance ; he who performs criminal 
or merely culpable acts will be condemned to begin 
his earthly career afresh, until he shall reach the 
perfection requisite to leave our imperfect globe. 

We said, in the first chapter of this work, that to 
us man is the analogue of a certain class of animals ; 
namely, insects. We claimed that in life man rep- 
resents the caterpillar stage of an insect ; his corpse 
is the chrysalis, and when re-arisen, he is the ana- 
logue of the airy butterfly. We have tried to define 
the higher faculties peculiar to a human being born 
again into perfection and glory, and we have traced 
the itinerary of his long journey through the vast 
extent of the heavens. We have shown that man, 
doomed on earth to inevitable suffering and con- 
stant misfortunes, will find, in the succession of new 
existences awaiting him on the other side of the 
tomb, infinite joys, and at the same time the reward 
of his virtues. Whence we must conclude that man 
should bear with resignation and courage the trials 
and sorrows of the present life, and that he should 
look forward without alarm or secret anguish, but 
rather with a steadfast heart, to the moment of his 
approaching end. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 319 

We have grouped, in a rapid synthesis, the phil- 
osophical considerations presented in this work. If 
the reader reject thern, we must ask him to furnish 
another explanation of man's destiny and the cause 
of his presence upon earth. 

Why, indeed, are we here on this sad planet, 
which is our forced abode ? Did we ask to come 
hither ? Why are we compelled to live here, sub- 
ject to so many ills, weighed down by so much grief 
and toil, the victims of so much injustice and de- 
ception ? Had we been consulted, we should have 
refused to pass through such a painful career ; were 
we asked to begin it again, we should refuse with 
great emphasis. We came into life without our 
wish, and we leave it in spite of ourselves. Our 
presence on earth can only be explained by admit- 
ting that our sojourn here is merely a transient 
incident in the continuity of our existences, only 
a link in the chain of our successive lives ; and 
that we are undergoing a season of trial and prepara- 
tion before continuing our journey and ending it 
elsewhere. 

If human existence were a final state, a day with 
no to-morrow, it would be the most flagrant injus- 
tice, the most cruel irony, an unending cause for 
despair and tears to the unhappy creatures doomed 
to such a fate. The doctrine which we offer is a 
perfect explanation of our presence on this globe, 
telling us, as it does, that our earthly life is but a 
transitory period, which prepares humanity for 



320 JOYS BEYOND THE THRESHOLD. 

other destinies, and assures it a career of constant 
happiness, in the depths of eternal light, face to 
face with the marvels of creation, and in the imme- 
diate presence of God. 

Let us say, in conclusion, that in so far as the doc- 
trine of punishment and reward after death is con- 
cerned, none of the religions actually professed on 
the earth satisfy the heart or mind. They are 
pure legends, sometimes simple and artless, like 
those which sprang from the Oriental imagination, 
and which were exalted into dogmas by Buddhist, 
Brahmin, and Mahometan sages ; sometimes ter- 
rible, like those forged by fierce theologians in 
the Middle Ages for the guidance of Christians. 
Conceived at a period of universal ignorance, these 
dogmas are absolutely opposed to the laws of Na- 
ture, and to sustain their worn-out scaffolding, we 
have nothing but a would-be revelation and faith, — 
that is to say, words very ingeniously invented to 
cut short all discussion, to deify absurdity, to sanc- 
tify an impossibility, to raise indifference upon a 
shield. 

Hypothesis for hypothesis, I have seen fit to 
adopt another, which I did not, moreover, wholly 
imagine, but which I found in part in the writ- 
ings of certain great thinkers of our age, — Jean 
Reynaud, Dupont (of Nemours), Charles Bonnet, 
and Pezzani. The theory of the transmigration 
of souls and of celestial resurrections has this 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 321 

advantage, — that it was conceived in an enlight- 
ened era, and is based on a knowledge of nature 
and the arrangement of the universe. 

These ideas, which now seem strange and hazard- 
ous, will be the truths of the coming century ; for 
often last night's heresy is to-morrow's dogma. 
It is the dawn of the new day whence pure light 
shall come, in a future not far removed, to dispel 
the shadows of the superstitions of former ages. 



THE END. 



21 



MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 



The ToMorrow of Death ; 

OR, 

THE FUTURE LIFE ACCORDING 
TO SCIENCE. 

By LOUIS FIGUIER, 

Translated from the French, by S. R. Crockbr. i vol. i6mo. #1.50. 



From the Literary World. 
As its striking, if somewhat sensational title indicates, the book deals with the 
question of the future life, and purports to present " a complete theory of Nature, 
a true philosophy of the Universe." It is based on the ascertained facts of science 
which the author marshals in such a multitude, and with such skill, as must com- 
mand the admiration of those who dismiss his theory with a sneer. We doubt if 
the marvels of astronomy have ever had so impressive a presentation in popular 
form as they have here. . . . 

Th2 opening chapters of the book treat of the three elements which compose 
man, — body, soul, and life. The first is not destroyed by death, but simply changes 
its form ; the last is a force, like light and heat, — a mere state of bodies ; the soul 
is indestructible and immortal. After death, according to M. Figuier, the soul be- 
comes incarnated in a new body, and makes part of a new being next superior to 
man in the scale of living existences, — the superhuman. This being lives in the 
ether which surrounds the earth and the other planets, where, endowed with senses 
and faculties like ours, infinitely improved, and many others that we know nothing 
of, he leads a life whose spiritual delights it is impossible for us to imagine. . . . 
Those who enjoy speculations about the future life will find in this book fresh and 
pleasant food for their imaginations ; and, to those who delight in the revelations 
of science as to the mysteries that obscure the origin and the destiny of man, these 
pages offer a gallery of novei and really marvellous views. We may, perhaps, ex- 
press our opinion of "The To-Morrow of Death " at once comprehensively and 
concisely, by saying that to every mind that welcomes light on these grave ques- 
tions, from whatever quarter and in whatever shape it may come, regardless oi 
precedents and authorities, this work will yield exquisite pleasure. It will shoci 
some readers, and amaze many ; but it will fascinate and impress all. 



Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, by the Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 



Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. 

THE SOURCES OF CONSOLATION 
IN HUMAN LIFE. 

By Rev. WILLIAM R. ALGER, 
Author of " The Genius of Solitude^ li Friendships of Women," etc. 

l6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50. 



The writer of this volume, a well-known minister among the Unitarians of 
New England, having reached nearly threescore years and ten, fittingly takes in 
hand a topic of special interest to older people and not without attraction even to 
the young. He is able to speak from experience as well as observation, and to 
give additional force to what he has to say by having himself seen and known how 
continually human beings need consolation amid the troubles of life. His purpose 
here is to furnish a full discussion of the subject and a setting forth of the neces- 
sity, the ground, and the essential method of consolation. Nothing doubting that 
he has something to say which is worth saying, "he hopes to communicate his 
message in a winsome and effective way, free from the perfunctory quality and 
mawkish traits so prominent in most books dedicated to this subject." 

Mr. Alger arranges the matter of his volume in ten chapters. First, the 
consolations in human life are classified and illustrated ; next, the weeping of 
humanity in all ages, or " the history of tears," is given. Following this touching 
chapter comes appropriate and tolerably full considerations of the relation be- 
tween the calamities of men and the providence of God: the mystery of early 
deaths, or the mission of the little child ; " partings in human life, or the farewells 
of the world;" "our human need of faith in an all-pervasive and overruling 
God; " the " true lessons of grief; " the "tragedy of the sea, and its removal; " 
the "grounds for a cheerful trust in the perfection of divine providence; " "the 
consolation and true interpretation of the origin, office, and meaning of death ; " 
and in a concluding essay his view of the " latest form of theology, the divine 
purpose in the universe a perfect consolation for every ill." 

These are interesting passages, and they show with what thought and vigor 
the whole volume is written. The very title of the book will attract attention ; 
and the reader who once opens it will read far into it and, finally, through it. 
Mr. Alger's style has a pervading charm, and his wide survey of a theme that 
appeals to the whole human race is made with freshness, force, and originality. — 
New York Times. 



Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the 
Publishers, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 







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